


a martyr in my bed tonight

by FlYiNgPiGlEtS



Series: this tired world could change AU [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Caretaking, Episode: e022 Colony (The Magnus Archives), Fainting, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Pre-Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27110761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlYiNgPiGlEtS/pseuds/FlYiNgPiGlEtS
Summary: After the Prentiss incident, Jon ends up being Martin's unexpected emergency contact.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: this tired world could change AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108637
Comments: 128
Kudos: 265





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings for: worms, confusion, exhaustion, food mention, nightmares, dizziness, nausea, panic attacks and fainting. (Also Martin says the f-work as a treat. He deserves it.)
> 
> Title from "Some Nights" by fun.

“Make yourself at home, I suppose. Not the most luxurious place to spend the night, but at least there are—” Jon turns full circle in an attempt to locate whatever it is he intends to offer Martin now. “Ah, blanket. Singular. My apologies, Martin, I—well, I wasn’t expecting…”

Any other time, Martin would be marvelling at the fact that Jon is, for want of a better word, fussing. Over _him_. But the energy and clarity of mind he’d been desperately clinging to during his statement had evaporated the moment he sat down on the air mattress in the storage room attached to the Archives, and all he wants to do now is sleep. He accepts the thin, grey blanket from Jon with shaking hands and tries not to let on that he really isn’t paying attention.

“Oh, and one last thing before I—where did I put it? There it is.” Jon frantically produces another offering: the pay-as-you-go Nokia brick that they’re required to take on any excursions outside of London, according to some archaic health and safety regulation. “You should keep this on you for now, since you’re still without a phone. It has my number in it. And Tim and Sasha’s, of course. I’m sure they won’t protest if you were to call—to call any of us, should the need arise.”

Martin takes the phone, stares at it blankly for a moment and then decides he can wait until morning to check whether it’s been topped up recently. Was it his job to do that this month? Or Sasha’s? He puts the phone on the floor next to the air mattress.

“Thanks, Jon,” he says, his voice croaking with exhaustion.

“It’s the least I could do,” Jon murmurs, a quiet, brooding aspect to his voice.

Jon lingers in the middle of the room, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his brown corduroy trousers. He’d removed his glasses as some point during the statement, and they hang around his neck on a purple, grey and black string. Haloed by the exposed lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, he’s a curious paradox of unruly and angelic.

Martin clears his throat, kicks off his shoes. He doesn’t know how else to express how much he wants to sleep. How much he can’t do that with Jon a few metres away, having a crisis of conscience.

Jon seems to acknowledge the hint, taking his hands from his pockets and bringing them together in a universal statement of _right then_. “I’ll leave you to it. But, ah—Martin?”

Martin’s slowly drifting towards lying down. The air mattress possesses a certain, irresistible magnetism in his current state. “Yeah?”

“You can call. Any of us. If there’s an emergency or—or for any other reason.” Jon is at the door now, his hand lingering on the handle with a slight tremor. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Martin.”

And then Jon is gone, and Martin finally sleeps.

* * *

Martin has had enough dreams about work to last a lifetime, but they’ve taken a significant turn since his transfer to the Archives: long, spiralling nightmares about having his secrets exposed, his lies unpicked one by one in front of the people he would tentatively call friends, who took him out for his birthday for the first time in years. He almost misses the days when he used to dream about being late or showing up in his pyjamas.

It takes him a long time—after he’s used the bathroom, made a cup of tea in the breakroom, sat down at his desk to finish researching that statement Jon left on his desk without even a Post-it about what he wanted Martin to do with it—for Martin to realise that something’s wrong. And that something is that it’s barely five a.m. and he’s at work and he’s _in his pyjamas_.

It’s not a dream. It might be part of an elaborate delusion, in his exhaustion, his lack of food or daylight for nearly two weeks, but there’s a mundanity and detail to it that tells Martin it’s very much real.

Of course. _Of course_. He’d been wearing pyjamas because, well, if he was going to be eaten by worms in his flat, he might as well be comfortable, and then the knocking had stopped and the smell had evaporated and he’d ran to the Institute without stopping to change.

Martin groans and lowers his head to his desk. “Fuck.”

He didn’t pack a bag. There was no time. And he can’t exactly call Tim or Sasha or, god forbid, Jon at this time of morning and ask one of them to bring him a spare set of work-appropriate clothing. And he’s not going to let any of them go to his flat, _no way_ , he won’t put them in danger like that.

But he can’t be sitting here in his pyjamas, working on a statement and nursing a cup of tea, when the others get here. He should go and find some clothes. Now. Maybe there’s a 24/7 supermarket open nearby with one of those clothing sections, where he can at least buy a generic shirt and some polyester trousers and shoes that aren’t slippers.

He’s not thinking straight, he knows he’s not. But another part of him, which has fully given in to the belief that this thought spiral is absolutely logical, insists it’s fine. It’s fine. There’s a Sainsbury’s by Gloucester Road that’s open at this time of night, and it might take him a while to get there but it will be worth it, he tells himself. A worthwhile journey.

He leaves his tea and computer and sets off, only just remembering to slip the emergency phone into the pocket of his coat on his way out of the Archives.

* * *

It’s not until Martin is standing in the aisle of Sainsbury’s that it hits him: the worms. _The fucking worms._ It’s not like he’d forgotten about their existence, about Jane Prentiss, but his logic had taken a momentary leave of absence when he was convinced that if he didn’t buy himself some new work clothes, he would die of embarrassment.

And now it’s back with a vengeance.

What is he doing in a Sainsbury’s at six in the morning? In his pyjamas and his soft-soled, not-at-all wormproof slippers? Without any sort of weapon to defend himself with? Not that he knows what sort of weapon would work against the worms.

He’s a walking target. Jane could find him here, he’s sure of it. She can probably track him. She tracked him back to his flat. There was something cunning and sinister about those worms, no matter what Jon seems to think about them. They might be here already, lurking among the rows of ubiquitous black trousers, making holes in the shirts, sitting inside the shoes.

But with the return of fear comes the rest of the feelings he’d neglected: exhaustion, hunger, the shakiness that seems to be emanating from inside of him after days of huddling between his sofa and his bed, the only space that felt safe. His legs don’t feel solid anymore.

He reaches for one of the metal clothing stands, lowering himself unsteadily onto an orange stool next to the shoes section. He can’t sit here for long, but he needs this. A moment. To breathe, to think, to plan. His body hurts. There’s a creeping nausea rushing through him, covering him, head to toe, in pins and needles.

There’s someone walking towards him. A concerned customer, perhaps. He looks up and catches a glimpse of red—and then all thoughts of rest flee, and he’s on his feet again. Jane Prentiss wore red. A red dress. A red dress pockmarked with crawling worms.

Martin reaches for the Nokia. Pulls it out of his pocket. Jon. He needs to call Jon. Jon will know what to do. Jon always seems to know what to do. He clutches the phone like a lifeline.

“Excuse me, sir, but—are you alright?”

He should run. Run first, call Jon later. Jon will demand to know why he wasn’t running, why he was making a phone call instead of running, if he ever lives to tell this tale. He’s on his feet, sidestepping the outstretched arm, coated in red fabric, but everything catches up with him at once, before he can even make a move towards escape. The sick, twisting dizziness rises up inside of him, and he’s folded into darkness before he can even dial Jon’s number.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter content warnings: anxiety, emergency phone calls, fainting, hospitals, worms, trypophobia, needles, food, self-depreciating language, panic attack mention, nausea, swearing.

The last time Jon checked his alarm clock, it had been close to five in the morning without even a glimpse of rest. His eyes are gritty and heavy, too big for his head, and he would much rather be asleep than staring at his ceiling and worrying about Martin. But—god, it’s quiet in the Archives at night, and _cold_ , and Martin had only just escaped Prentiss’s siege. Jon’s concern is reasonable and justified. He would feel just as conflicted had he left Tim or Sasha alone after such an ordeal.

He’d been thinking of getting up, of getting ready for work and heading in early. It wasn’t unusual for him before this happened, no one would question his intentions, and there was already too much work that needed doing. Somehow, though, he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he remembers, he’s jolting awake to the screech of his alarm.

No, not his alarm, although nearly—the clock next to his bed informs him it’s 6:17 a.m. It’s his phone, buzzing insistently on the dresser across the room. Jon throws himself out of bed, stumbling across the room just as the ringtone abruptly gives up.

Jon snatches the phone off the dresser. There’s one missed call: INSTITUTE EMERGENCY PHONE. Jon frowns. Who had the emergency phone? He hadn’t sent any of his assistants outside of London recently. There was no reason—

 _Martin_.

Jon’s just about to call the number back, his hands shaking as he tries to press the right buttons, when it rings again, the same contact flashing on the screen. He answers immediately.

“Martin, what’s wrong?” Jon snaps. He meant to sound welcoming, concerned, but his voice is sharp and makes him flinch.

“Oh, um, I’m—it’s not—I’m so sorry to bother you this early in the morning,” says an unfamiliar voice, slightly high-pitched with what Jon interprets as concern, “You were listed as an emergency contact on this phone? It wasn’t locked and it was on the floor and I thought—”

Jon takes a deep breath, but it doesn’t steady him. If anything, he feels even less tethered than before. “What happened?”

“Your, um—Martin, is that his name?”

“What happened,” Jon says again, his voice firm, “To Martin?”

“He’s okay. He’s conscious now, and talking a little.” A deep, shaking breath that isn’t his, this time. “He fainted. In Sainsbury’s.”

It seems wonderfully mundane, in comparison to all the scenarios that had been parading through Jon’s mind. He’s sure Martin isn’t the first person to faint in Sainsbury’s, and he probably won’t be the last. But that doesn’t ease the pounding of his heart. He still feels like he’s drifting, caught in a tide of worry he can’t bear to name no matter how overwhelming it’s becoming.

“Which one?”

The person on the phone gives him an address. He writes it down, his hand shaking so much that his writing looks spidery and distorted.

“Oh, but actually—hang on a second—” the stranger talks to someone else, a background conversation Jon can’t hear over the rushing of blood on his ears. “I think someone—I think they might have called an ambulance?”

“You think?” Jon’s voice betrays him again, dry and unimpressed, as if dealing with something much less meaningful.

“No, they did. They definitely did,” the person rushes to tell him, “I can tell you the name of the hospital they’re taking him to?”

Jon refrains from informing this bystander that they could have started with this information. Now he’s got the address of a random Sainsbury’s in Chelsea & Kensington written down, which is _useless_.

“That would be helpful, yes.” He takes a steadying breath, hoping it doesn’t air his frustration. “Thank you.”

He writes down the address of the hospital, his handwriting—his hand—even shakier than before. He considers calling Tim. This is very much out of his comfort zone. And Tim seems to have multiple comfort zones adaptable to any situation. He would know what to do.

But no, this is something Jon must do himself. He was the one who sent Martin to Jane Prentiss. Not explicitly, but in increments, with every throwaway comment and unthinking dismissal. Martin’s words echo in his memory: _I wanted proof for you._

_For you._

“Tell Martin I’ll meet him there,” Jon says, a promise to himself more than to Martin.

“Yes. Will do. I—oh, one more thing!”

Jon sighs. “Yes?”

“Does your friend have any allergies? The paramedics want to know.”

 _Friend_. Jon is so caught on the word he doesn’t know where his answer comes from: “Shellfish.” He probably remembers from the times they’ve ordered takeaway to the Institute, that’s all.

“Right.” A nervous laugh. “Right, well, I’ll let them know, but I don’t think that will come up.”

“Thank you,” Jon says.

The line beeps and dies. With another deep breath, Jon forces himself into some semblance of togetherness. He can do this. It’s his duty, as Martin’s—well. It’s his duty, and he leaves it at that.

* * *

The hospital is busy, although mainly it’s weary doctors and nurses swapping notes at the end of their shifts, making phone calls and doing rounds. There’s a sort of tired, morning hush in the A&E waiting room. A woman holds a sleeping baby, an older child sitting silently next to her. A man holds an icepack against his head while the receptionist and a nurse quietly discuss his conduct, whether they’re willing to treat him. There are two students, one in their pyjamas and the other in a muddy black dress, clinging to each other’s hands.

Jon feels very out of place.

He’s called into one of the curtained bays down the hallway from the waiting room. Martin is sitting on a gurney, looking impossibly paler than before, when Jon had taken his statement. He’s still wearing his pyjamas—fluffy-looking tartan bottoms and a black t-shirt with a curled-up fox on the front, _z_ s floating upwards from between its pointed ears—but his shoes and coat have been placed on a chair in the corner. There’s an intravenous line attached to one of his hands and, in the other, he’s limply holding an unopened cereal bar that seems to have come from the vending machine. Jon wonders who got it for him. He’s glad someone did.

“Jon,” Martin croaks, looking embarrassed and helpless and, above all else, _exhausted_.

“The doctor will be with you shortly,” the nurse who led him here says. She smiles, a kind but apologetic thing, and Jon decides she must have been the one to supply the cereal bar. “She’ll have some discharge instructions for you. I’m afraid there’s no space on the ward, so we won’t be able to admit him fully, but you’ll be alright, won’t you, Martin?”

Jon has questions: _admit Martin for what? On which ward? Will these instructions be for him specifically? Should he be taking notes?_ But the nurse leaves after exchanging another sweet smile with Martin, and then they’re alone.

“Right.” Jon puts his hands inside the pockets of his long, woollen coat, and then—no, what is he doing, he’s _inside_. He removes his hands and awkwardly pats his legs, as if he’s lost his keys. “How are you doing, Martin?”

It sounds abrupt, down-to-business, as if Jon is asking him a question at work. But they’re not at work now. They both flinch.

“I’m fine, honestly. I’ll be fine,” Martin insists, “Just a little dehydrated.”

As if to prove this point, Martin raises the hand with the IV and gives an awkward wave. A flash of panic rushes through Jon, and he finds himself reaching for Martin’s wrist before he can stop himself, forcing it back onto the gurney.

“Christ, Martin, be _careful_ ,” Jon admonishes.

Martin swallows and adverts his eyes. Jon realises he’s still holding Martin’s wrist and quickly pulls away.

“I told them they didn’t need to call you,” Martin says, fiddling with the orange packaging of the cereal bar and not meeting Jon’s gaze, “But—heh—I don’t think I was making much sense at that point.”

“What happened?” Jon asks.

“God, it’s—” Martin laughs nervously, tips his head back against the pillows propping him up on the gurney. “It’s really embarrassing.”

“I will refrain from passing judgement,” Jon says, but his voice sounds stuffy and pretentious in a way that contradicts his words.

Martin finally meets his eyes, if only to give him a dubious look. “You will?”

“Yes.”

“I guess I do owe you an explanation. Another one.” Martin sighs, but before Jon can jump in, insist he’s asking out of concern rather than because he thinks he’s _owed_ something, Martin continues: “Well, I—I woke up in the Archives and I guess I must have been pretty confused at that point already because I might have—made a cup of tea? And tried to log on to my computer to do some work?”

“What time was this?”

Martin shrinks into himself, half-embarrassed, half-indignant. “You said you wouldn’t judge.”

“I’m not judging _you_. I’m simply trying to form a fuller picture of the sequence of events that—” Jon cuts himself off. He’s getting unreasonably angry, and about what? “Continue.”

“Anyway, I realised I was wearing my pyjamas. At work. And I didn’t—god, it’s so silly. I didn’t even think of the worms. I set off for the 24-hour Sainsbury’s as if I hadn’t just, you know, escaped a creepy worm woman who definitely wanted to—urgh. And then I was in Sainsbury’s, feeling like _shit_ —oh, wait, sorry, that’s not very professional. I was in Sainsbury’s, feeling decidedly unwell, when I remembered the worms and someone approached me wearing a red coat and then I must have panicked and everything sort of hit me and I…” Martin shrugs, looking down at the cereal bar. “I passed out. And when I came around, I was pretty confused and rambling about worms and—you know. So they called an ambulance and they called you on the Institute phone and… here we are.”

Jon wants to sit down on the chair, but he also doesn’t want to touch Martin’s things, so he sticks to lingering. “Here we are.”

“I really am fine,” Martin adds. Again.

Jon fixes him with a look he hopes conveys his—not disapproval, but insistence that he isn’t going to let Martin downplay this. “Martin, you are clearly not _fine_.”

“I didn’t know what to tell the doctor about the—the Prentiss thing and the worms—god, the _worms_ —so I said I’d been camping.”

Jon knows his face is doing something he doesn’t want it to, is conveying _judgement_ , but really, “ _Camping_?”

“Yeah, like a camping trip and then I’d been separated from the group and—and then they’d found me, obviously, and dropped me off at home, but I’d starting feeling unwell and—and I was going to Sainsbury’s to get some—medicine, maybe?” Martin is gesturing with his hands again. Jon refrains from touching him, this time, but flinches every time he worries about the IV tearing or coming loose. “I mean, I had to explain the dehydration and the—well, not malnutrition, not really, but the fact I’ve only eaten, like, rations from a can for the last two weeks. I think they bought it?”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “What part am I playing in all of this?”

“I hadn’t thought that far,” Martin mutters, “Honestly, I wasn’t sure you’d even…”

“Martin, why wouldn’t I—?”

Jon is cut off by the arrival of the doctor, sweeping aside the curtain and stepping abruptly into the small space of the cubicle. “How’s our unhappy camper doing?”

“Fine, thank you,” Martin replies, giving the doctor a strained smile.

“You must be the boss.” The doctor extends her hand to Jon, who shakes it unhappily. “I’m Doctor Müller, nice to meet you. It was good thinking, giving Martin here the work mobile after he lost his on that disastrous camping trip. Saved us a lot of legwork in trying to get an emergency contact.”

Jon gives her a tight smile and retracts his hand from hers. This _goddamn_ camping trip. “Yes, well, I—I did warn them against the camping trip.” He glances at Martin. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t come to their aid, if they were to need it.”

Dr. Müller raises her eyebrows. “More than one of your employees were on this doomed expedition?”

“It was, um—” Jon casts around for an explanation, logical or otherwise. “Tim, another of my subordinates, he’s an outdoorsy type. Always organising these sorts of trips. I did say that this one seemed a little… outside their comfort zone.”

“I’ll say,” Dr Müller agrees.

“Tim planned the route,” Martin offers meekly.

Jon looks at Martin again. He’s a surprisingly good liar.

“Well, you ought to have a word with this Tim about knowing your limits,” Dr. Müller says, with a pointed look, “Anyhow, moving on. As I’m sure my colleague told you, our non-emergency wards are all full at the moment. Ideally, I would keep you in for observation since you’ve been through quite the ordeal, but you’ve responded well to the fluids, your BP has stabilised, your bloodwork didn’t show up anything unexpected _and_ you’ve got this one to keep an eye on you, so we’re going to let you go free.”

“Thank you,” Martin says quietly.

“Right, well, the main thing is _rest_. And lots of it! Try and set up a calm, quiet environment where you can bunker down for the next few days and get some of your energy back. Stay hydrated, but don’t overdo it. The same with food: hearty meals you know you can keep down. Keep warm, again in moderation.” Dr. Müller turns fully to Jon. “Things to look out for: any confusion, fever, chills, dizziness, extreme lethargy. If he loses consciousness again, has a seizure or any difficulty breathing, you need to call an ambulance straight away.” 

Jon really wishes he could take notes. He doesn’t have anything to take notes _on_ , but he would have liked the option. He nods along as if he’s not lost by this list of what seems to be escalating possibilities of disaster.

“I’ve just got a few more questions and checks to do before we let you go,” Dr. Müller adds. She looks between Martin and Jon, landing finally on the latter. “You might want to step out of this bit.”

“Right. Yes. I’ll just—” Jon looks at Martin, who is still almost obsessively absorbed in staring at the cereal bar in his lap. At long last, Jon catches a glimpse of the flavour: _just peachy_. God. No wonder he hadn’t eaten it yet. “I’ll be—I’ll leave you to it.”

Jon steps around the curtain and into the hallway. He takes a deep breath, scrubs at his eyes. He wishes he’d slept more, at the same time that he _knows_ he would have slept even less if he was trying to prepare for this. He’s never liked hospitals. Who does? But this is so far beyond anything he could have anticipated doing for Martin, of all people.

Martin is probably as uncomfortable as Jon. More so, even. Jon determines to pull himself together, and decides he has enough time to visit the vending machine while doing so.

* * *

When Jon returns to Martin’s section of the ward, the doctor is gone and Martin is alone, sitting in the single chair. He’s no longer attached to the IV. He’s wearing his coat, but his shoes sit, still unlaced, by his socked feet. There’s a pale green pharmacy bag, stapled closed, between his hip and the arm of the chair. He looks up when Jon steps inside, his eyes sunken and shaded with exhaustion.

He offers Jon a weak smile. “Hi.”

Jon clears his throat. “Hello.”

“I really am sorry about this, Jon, I—”

“Stop apologising,” Jon snaps. He flinches, tries to shake himself into sympathy. “What I am trying to say is: this isn’t your fault. It’s fine. There is nothing to apologise for.”

A strange look crosses Martin’s face, a mess of emotions he seems unable to sort through fully before shoving them down. He takes a deep breath and nods in a way that makes Jon doubt Martin has internalised his words about blame. “Okay.”

“I got you—” Jon pulls his hands out of his pockets, revealing every flavour of cereal bar except peach and the bottle of water he also got from the vending machine. The cereal bars all have quirky, upbeat names that make Jon cringe: _blueberry boost_ , _rad raspberry_ , _appley ever after_. “I thought you should probably eat something before we leave.”

“Oh.” Martin blinks. “Oh, well, Sandra got me the—”

“I noticed it was peach.”

“Yeah.” Martin laughs, a little sad, a little self-depreciating. “I felt too bad to say anything.”

“Well, I will swap you for one of these—take your pick—and make sure you never have to see it again.”

Martin smiles, almost laughs. “Alright.”

Martin ends up choosing the one called _strapping strawberry_ , which has the eponymous fruit on the front wearing a top hat. Jon takes the peach-flavoured one and stuffs it deep into the inner pocket of his coat, out of sight and, he hopes, mind.

Jon stands awkwardly while Martin eats the cereal bar in small, slow bites, the paleness of his skin taking on a slightly green-grey hue. Jon searches the room for a bin, in case Martin is sick, but comes up short, spotting only a yellow sharps container next to the gurney that wouldn’t even do in a pinch. 

Martin stops halfway through the cereal bar to say to Jon: “I should apologise to Tim. When I next see him.”

Jon frowns. “What for?”

“For blaming the—” Martin’s mouth tightens. He takes small sips of the water until the nausea seems to pass. “The camping trip.”

“I was the one who implemented him,” Jon replies, still frowning, “And I’m not sure why it would bother him.”

“I just feel bad.”

“Why?”

“Because I do. I just _do_ ,” Martin says helplessly, “Tim would never—he’s actually very careful. On camping trips. Or when he goes kayaking. Sasha told me. They go together sometimes.”

“Martin, it was an entirely fabricated scenario. The alternative was telling a medical professional you were held hostage in your flat for two weeks by a woman infected with parasitic worms, which I am sure would have delayed your imminent discharge,” Jon insists, “Tim doesn’t need to know. And if you do, for some reason, tell him, I highly doubt he’d care. You are wasting your time on guilt.”

This doesn’t seem to make Martin feel any better. If anything, he looks more upset as he silently finishes the cereal bar and carefully folds the red wrapper into smaller and smaller squares. 

Jon fidgets. “I’ll—shall I go and call us a taxi?”

“Yeah,” Martin mumbles, “Yes, that would be good. If you don’t mind.”

Jon is just about to step around the curtain when Martin calls after him. He turns. “What is it?”

“I can’t—my shoes,” Martin says, his voice shaking, “When I lean down to—I have a headache, and it makes me really dizzy when I try and—and I wouldn’t ask, I really wouldn’t, but I don’t think I can do it. By myself.”

“Oh,” Jon murmurs.

“I’m sorry. I’m really, _really_ sorry. I know this isn’t—it’s not your thing, and I—”

“Martin,” Jon interrupts, stern, “It’s _fine_.”

Martin looks away. Jon makes his way over to the chair, kneeling stiffly in front of where Martin sits. Unsure, at first, he puts his hands around Martin’s ankles, his touch feather-light, and helps to guide his feet into the shoes. A pair of plain, white trainers, seams torn from wear. Jon accidentally tickles Martin’s foot when trying to unfold the tongue from where it’s tucked itself into the laces, and nearly gets a knee to his nose.

“Sorry,” Martin says quickly, “Sorry. God, I’m sorry.”

Jon keeps going, not acknowledging Martin’s apologies. He carefully laces each trainer, tying the knots double, so they won’t come undone and trip him. This seems very important, all of a sudden. A monumental task. He triple-checks his work before he allows himself to stand again, popping his knees as he does.

“I’ll call us that taxi, then,” Jon tells him.

Martin nods. “Thanks, Jon. Thank you. I—”

“Meet me at the entrance when you’re ready,” Jon tells him, and then leaves the cubicle before anything else can be said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this isn't the conclusion of this fic, but there's gonna be another chapter because i really want to include Tim and Sasha!!!! gotta utilise the full potential of this series 1 setting!!!! so expect more grumpy but caring Jon next chapter AND archival assistant shenanigans!!!
> 
> have a great day everyone and thank you for reading <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter content warnings: worms, self-depreciation, feelings of unworthiness and being a burden (which are mostly challenged in dialogue), hospitals, dizziness, nausea, medication, disassociation, disorientation, brief mention of Martin's mother, swearing, food, guilt, anxiety.

Martin hates this. He _hates_ it. It’s one thing to have caused a scene in Sainsbury’s—and yes, it sounds funny, he’s going to try and pass it off as a joke to anyone who asks, but he felt _so vulnerable_ in that moment, so unwilling to be seen—and another to have used up an ambulance. Not _needed_ , but used, because he was fine, they would admit him if he wasn’t, the full wards were just an excuse. And now Jon is here. His _boss_. Who, as far as Martin is concerned, hated him until yesterday. And that’s only because the hatred shifted to pity after Martin’s statement.

God, it’s all a mess.

He sits in the chair, surrounded by the thin hospital curtain, trying not to pick at the small plaster covering where the intravenous line had been. He needs a moment to breathe. To _not cry_. His head is pounding, and he still feels dizzy and sick and overwhelmed. The pharmacy bag crinkles when he shifts in his chair. Dr. Müller had given him some rehydration solution, supplements and his repeat prescription of sertraline, which he hadn’t been able to renew during Prentiss’s siege. He’d ran out less than a week in.

He wants to go home, but he’s not sure he has one anymore. The safety of home, as a place, as an idea, had always been flimsy, and now it’s ruined, destroyed beyond repair.

“Come on, come _on_ ,” Martin whispers to himself, “Pull yourself together. It’s fine. It’s going to be _fine_.”

And besides, what was he doing, sitting here and _wallowing_ , while Jon was waiting for him outside? The taxi might be there already. He doesn’t want to be responsible for driving the fare up. He barely has enough change in his coat pocket to afford a tip.

With a sigh, Martin gets to his feet, giving himself a few moments to adjust to the change in elevation. He wants to sleep. The light, the noise of the hospital, is too much, an overwhelming swirl of conversations and beeping and fluorescent lights, and he can’t focus on any of it for long enough to feel grounded.

He stumbles down the hallway, lined with curtained bays similar to where he’d been triaged, and tries not to trip over his own feet. The shoes are new, in that Sandra, the nurse, had found them for him in lost property after his slippers disappeared somewhere between Sainsbury’s and the hospital. They might have harder soles, better for warding off worms, but Martin misses the familiar fluffiness of his slippers.

Lost in this moment of mourning—for slippers, of all things, but he’d been given them by his mother and he liked to pretend they were a deliberate gift rather than a last-minute substitute—he doesn’t see the young nurse rushing from the opposite direction. They bump shoulders, a brief yet disorientating second of contact. The nurse gives Martin a genuine but rushed apology, continuing on his journey. Martin doesn’t move on quite so easily.

He’s so close to the entrance. He can see Jon standing outside, next to a black cab, and his heart picks up in panic. He’s going to make the journey too expensive with his dallying, force Jon to cover the fare and— _shit_. A fresh wave of nausea and dizziness rises within him, and he shoves his way into the accessible bathroom cubicle attached to the A&E waiting room.

It’s empty, thankfully. Martin’s stomach swirls, and he sways over the toilet, wanting desperately not to touch anything but gripped by the simultaneous and overwhelming urge to simply lie on the floor and close his eyes. He wants desperately to sleep. Another hit of nausea, stronger than the first, and his knees nearly buckle.

There’s a tentative knock on the bathroom door. “Martin?”

Martin wants to alone. He wants not to be seen or heard or known. It’s not a new thing, this desire to disappear. But in this moment, it feels almost overwhelming.

“Martin?” Jon’s voice sounds through the door again.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s—” Martin shudders as his stomach clenches again, swallowing hard against the nausea. “It’s not locked.”

“Can I come in?” Jon asks.

Martin can’t reply. He thinks, if he dares to talk, he’ll be sick, and he doesn’t want that. Not ever, but especially not _now_ , with Jon just outside.

“Martin,” Jon says again, “I’m going to count to three and then I’m coming inside.”

Jon counts down, slowly, but Martin doesn’t interrupt. The door creaks cautiously open and Jon steps inside. His nose instantly wrinkles in disgust—not at Martin specifically, but the state of the bathroom. He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his coat as if to protect them from the assorted mess around them, which doesn’t appear to have been cleaned between the night-time A&E rush and their visit.

“Are you alright?” Jon asks, his voice soft but still possessing that ferocious focus. It’s unnerving, to hear it in a setting so different to where they usually interact.

“I’m fine. Just a little—” Martin gestures at the toilet, as if that explains everything, and breathes shallowly through the vengeful wave of sickness that bubbles inside of him after his attempt to speak.

Jon hums in understanding. He looks around the bathroom, his expression still caught between disgust and uncertainty, and announces: “Well, this entire visit has been a rather damning indictment of the NHS under Tory leadership.”

“What?” Martin splutters.

“Oh, I don’t blame the NHS,” Jon continues, as if Martin had invited him to lecture about politics in a hospital bathroom, “Far from it. Not that I should be disclosing my political alignment to an employee, but I do _not_ want you thinking I have ever, in my life, voted for—”

“Jon.”

“—but that is beside the point, which is that there seem to be no available beds—”

“ _Jon_.”

“—and this bathroom is, quite frankly, a biohazard—”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I know you’re not a Tory, Jon,” Martin interrupts. It comes out meeker than he’d like, still tinged with enough uncertainty that it sounds more like a question than a statement, but Jon stops talking. “And I think the full ward thing was just an excuse. They didn’t need to admit me.”

Jon is silent. Martin looks over his shoulder, feeling a little less like his stomach is going to turn itself inside out, to find Jon frowning very intently at the sign on the wall displaying the proper handwashing technique.

“Do you really think that?” Jon asks, very quietly.

“Yeah, I mean the whole thing was—it seemed sort of—I don’t know, I just—they probably shouldn’t have called the ambulance. Or you. I would have been fine on my own,” Martin says, tripping over the words, “Really. It’s not—I’m fine.”

Jon’s eyes snap to Martin’s. “Stop saying that.”

“But—”

“Martin, I have half a mind to march you straight back into A&E and demand they admit you. You do not look well. And I would not expect you to _be_ well either, considering what you’ve been through,” Jon insists, “Dr. Müller would have admitted you if it was within her power. You are not—well, whatever you think the issue is, you’re wrong.”

Martin blinks.

Jon’s frown somehow deepens. “No, that—I don’t mean—you know what I mean, don’t you?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Martin,” Jon huffs, as if Martin is being deliberately obstinate.

“I just—you know with the thing about Tim? And the camping trip?”

“You’re not still worrying about that?”

Martin tries not to shrink into himself. “No, it’s—I feel guilty.”

“About what?” Jon demands.

“About—I don’t know, causing a scene and wasting resources and forcing them to call you,” Martin blurts before he can stop himself, before he can hold on to these truths and not release them into a space where they can be appraised, “It’s just—it feels like a lot of fuss over nothing, and I feel bad, okay? I feel guilty. For all of this, not just the made-up camping trip.”

“But you have no reason to feel guilty,” Jon says, still frowning, as if he’s encountered a stubborn mental block while trying to solve an equation.

“Oh, great, well, if you say so,” Martin squeaks, “I guess I’ll just stop feeling guilty right now. Just like that.”

Jon recoils in shock.

Martin clamps his hand over his mouth when he realises what he’d said—to his _boss._ “God, Jon, I’m so sorry!”

“No. No, I—” Jon’s lips twitch and, for the briefest of moments, Martin thinks he is going to smile. But the lightness at the edge of Jon’s mouth vanishes almost as quickly as it arrived, as if Jon himself had smothered it. “I understand that these things don’t have an off-switch, although it would be convenient for us all if they did. I apologise.”

“No, please, it’s fine,” Martin says, “I’m the one who should apologise.”

“Martin.” Jon fixes him with a firm look. “This conversation is—well, it’s not one I want to have in a hospital bathroom. If at all.”

“Right.”

“Yes.”

“So, um—”

“If you think you are well enough,” Jon says slowly, “I think we would both be more comfortable at the Institute.”

Martin laughs, a weak, fragile thing that fades too quickly. “I bet you never thought you’d say _that_.”

Again, there’s that almost-smile at the edge of Jon’s lips. “There’s a first time for everything.”

Martin sighs. The nausea has mostly passed, leaving an emptying sort of exhaustion in its wake.

“Okay. I think I’m ready to—” _go home_. But no, he doesn’t have one of those, not anymore. He tries not to let the punch to the gut that is this re-realisation unbalance him. “Um, lead the way?”

Jon turns towards the door, then hesitates. “Are you—can you walk to the taxi?”

“Yeah,” Martin mumbles, “Yeah, I think I’ll be okay.”

“Right. Well. If you need any assistance, just—” Jon cuts himself off before he completes the offer, although it hangs heavy in the air between them even as they leave the bathroom for the growing chaos of A&E.

Martin catches a glimpse of the clock, hanging above the electric noticeboard displaying an ever-increasing wait time to the people seated at reception. It’s just ticked into the afternoon. Martin tries not to recoil with how much time he’s taken of Jon’s day already. The guilt makes him feel even heavier, like the floor would welcome him if he were to just give in. A slow descent into nothingness. It wouldn’t take much to instigate, to integrate himself with absence.

Jon stops his long strides, seeming to realise Martin can’t keep up. He looks Martin up and down with an annoyed sort of concern. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine,” Martin replies.

Jon lets out an explosive sigh. “Martin, your definition of ‘fine’ is deeply concerning.”

“I don’t really—” A small, desperate laugh wheezes out of Martin. It sounds strange, closer to tears than humour. “What else is there?”

Jon’s sigh is gentler, this time. “Come on.”

Martin follows. Because it really is true: what else is there?

* * *

“Martin.”

There’s an unfamiliar softness to Martin’s name that makes him want to sink further into sleep. He feels safe. There’s a coaxing lilt to that voice, but it seems to tell him to rest, to relinquish worry. He hums, as if to say, _yes, I heard you_ , and lets himself drift again.

“Martin.” It’s firmer this time, and with an edge to it that makes the owner of the voice immediately recognisable. Jon.

Martin forces his eyes open. It’s unbearably bright, even through the haze of grey clouds that hang in the air, not threatening rain but not giving the sun a stronghold either. He can just about make out Jon crouching next to the taxi. They’ve pulled up on the pavement outside the Magnus Institute and the door beside Martin’s seat is open, allowing Jon to lean inside slightly.

“Oh. Oh, god, sorry, I should—” Martin clears his throat, which is dry with the lingering vestiges of sleep. “Let me just find my wallet.”

“What are you talking about?” Jon demands.

“The fare—I should pay the driver for—”

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“No, really, Jon, I need to—”

“Martin,” Jon interrupts, “I’ve already paid.”

“A tip, then. I should—”

“I also left a tip,” Jon says drily, “I am not entirely lacking in common curtesy.”

“I’ll pay you back,” Martin offers. It sounds pathetic. He wishes he had more to offer, something else to say that would make this less awkward and stumbling and _strange_.

“No.”

“Jon—”

“Come on,” Jon huffs, “Let’s get you inside.”

“I think I—I feel sort of—” Martin tries for the right word, but his tongue feels too thick to articulate what it is he’s feeling besides disorientation.

“Lean on me, then.”

Jon puts an arm around Martin’s shoulders, guiding him gently to face out of the taxi, his feet on the pavement. With his other hand pressed delicately to the crown of Martin’s head, to stop him bumping against the roof of the taxi on his way to stranding, Jon half-lifts Martin out. Martin stumbles, his legs feeling disconcertingly _not there_ , but Jon’s hold on him is steady even as he thanks the driver one last time and closes the door so the taxi can pull away from the curb.

“Watch the steps,” Jon says, somehow sounding sarcastic, although Martin catches a glimpse of the intense seriousness on his face and wonders at the starkly different tone. He thinks he should look back over his conversations with Jon, search for more evidence of these contradictions in his memories, but the idea only just skims his consciousness before it’s carried away by a wave of dizziness.

“Sorry,” Martin murmurs, when they both stumble, nearly tripping over the first step.

There are fourteen steps. Martin knows this, has counted them absently every time he walks in to work, but they feel innumerable as he and Jon climb them. Jon still has one arm around Martin’s shoulders, the other holding so tightly to Martin’s upper arm that he thinks it might bruise. It’s an odd, one-sided closeness. Martin wonders if it would be more efficient if his arm was around Jon’s shoulder—a more sensible form of leverage. But he doesn’t want to make Jon uncomfortable, and he can barely process his own feelings about this faltering walk to the entrance of the Institute.

Jon has to let go of Martin’s arm to tap his employee card against the electronic scanner next to the imposing Gothic doors, which look more like they belong to a prison than an academic institution. There’s a familiar click as the mechanism releases, and Jon leans his shoulder against the left door, the one without the letterbox that sometimes seems warped and in possession of teeth, and awkwardly shuffles them both inside. It swings shut heavily behind them, with a thump of unnerving finality. Martin supposes this is where he is trapped, for now. He has nowhere else to go but here. It seems oddly fitting.

“Hello, how can I—?” Rosie stops abruptly when she sees Jon, half-carrying Martin into the reception area. “Oh, my god, are you okay?”

“Which one of us are you addressing?” Jon asks, with that same air of unexpected but gentle sarcasm that Martin wants to stow away for later.

“Both of you?” Rosie ventures.

“That depends,” Jon replies.

“On what?”

Jon frowns, seems to consider explaining, and then shakes his head. “There are some things I’ll need to discuss with you later. But for now, yes, we are okay. Both of us.”

“You don’t seem it,” Rosie says.

“Later.”

“Right.”

“We’ll be in the Archives.” Jon starts moving towards the hallway, and Martin doesn’t have much choice but to follow, still half-attached to Jon by the arrangement of support they’re both tangled in. But he pauses before they make it around the corner. “Ah, Rosie, I—I would appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to Elias before I have a chance to speak with him myself.”

Rosie nods. “No worries.”

“Thank you.”

There is no lift down to the basement. Martin vaguely remembers Jon complaining about it being an unacceptable oversight when it came to accessibility, and realises he probably should have paid more attention to this, too. There is a side to Jon he hadn’t known existed. Martin thinks perhaps he didn’t want it—to exist, to be given to him like a reluctant gift—in case it became too important. Too precious.

But there’s no way of avoiding it: Jon cares. In his own way. And it makes something inside of Martin sing.

“Martin, I know this is—not ideal,” Jon mutters, as they’re trying awkwardly to navigate the narrow stairwell down to the Archives. Jon’s arm is still around Martin’s shoulders, his other hand clamped around Martin’s arm in an attempt to stop him careening down the stone staircase. His grip gets tighter and tighter with each near miss. “But could you try and _concentrate_ for the next two minutes, until we are, at the very least, _not on the stairs_?”

Martin blinks away the fantastical glow of earning Jon’s well-buried concern. He gives Jon a sheepish smile, but Jon isn’t looking at him, and Martin is almost collapsed under the weight of his own exhaustion, so all he can see is the faint outline of stubble against Jon’s jaw from where they’re connected at a very odd angle. There’s always been an inscrutability to Jon, but from here, it’s impossible to make him out fully—he’s an outline of a person. It’s too early to place anything inside, trust or respect or friendship or otherwise. He is still too elusive of a figure in Martin’s life, even now.

The stairs. That would be a better place to focus. One foot in front of the other. Martin puts all of his attention into his feet, shuffling over each step methodically, until they reach the Archives. The final step down feels like the transition from a boat to dry land, a wonderfully solid arrival of relief. Martin releases a breath in time with Jon. His head is so heavy he almost gives in to the overwhelming urge to rest it against Jon’s shoulder. Just for a moment.

“Where the _hell_ have you been?” Tim all-but-shrieks, materialising from the omnipotent gloom of their shared workspace. “What happened? Why didn’t you call us? Or texted, at the very least?”

Sasha pushes away from her desk, joining Tim in the light cast by the fire escape sign above the stairwell. “Tim, come on. It’s probably not their fault—”

“No, I can be angry now I know they’re not dead.” Tim spins back to Martin and Jon. “What the fuck is going on?”

“ _Tim_!” Sasha says again.

“I will explain,” Jon interrupts, calm but not without his natural haughtiness, “But first, Martin—”

“Is this something to do with the stomach bug you had?” Tim’s voice takes on a gentler tone as he turns to address Martin. “That sounded rough, buddy. And I know for a fact Jon has terrible bedside manner, so blink twice if Jon dragged you back to work against your will?”

“Tim,” Jon snaps.

“Right. Sorry. Jon, why don’t you take a walk or something?” Tim tells him. “Sasha and I’ll have a little talk with Martin, and then we can get to the bottom of what’s—”

“Tim, if you think I have dragged an unwell employee to work against their will,” Jon says with a coolness that astounds Martin, “Then I am so far beyond any form of redemption in your eyes that I will give up all attempts at trying to maintain our acquaintance.”

“Ouch,” Sasha whistles.

“Ouch,” Tim echoes, “Alright, I didn’t actually believe all that. I’m just—humour as a coping mechanism. You know me.”

Sasha places her hand against the small of Tim’s back, a gesture of such easy and open intimacy that Martin’s stomach clenches with something like jealousy. Tim leans into her almost imperceptibly, and Martin thinks with cloying urgency: _I want that_.

“What Tim is trying to say, in his own way, is that we were worried. About both of you.” Sasha looks between the two of them, a crease of concern between her eyebrows. “Can you tell us what’s going on?”

“It’s… a lot,” Martin manages. He’s not sure how else to put it into words, but he feels like he owes them an explanation.

“Martin needs to rest,” Jon interrupts, “When I’m satisfied he is getting that rest, I will explain everything.”

“Maybe I should be there,” Martin says nervously.

“Martin, you need to—”

“Jon.” It’s tentative, but somehow, Martin’s simple exhalation of his name stops Jon’s sentence from finding its feet. “I want to be there. To explain it all.”

“Fine. If you insist,” Jon acquiesces. Martin isn’t sure he was insisting, if he’s ever actually insisted on anything in his life, but he’s glad that somehow, he made his point. “Get together any and all notes you have on Jane Prentiss, and meet us in the conference room in ten minutes. Oh, and would someone please make some tea?”

Martin tries to straighten. “I can—”

Jon’s grip on Martin’s shoulders tighten. “ _Not_ you.”

“I’m on it,” Tim announces.

Sasha nods. “I’ll get the files together.”

Jon returns her nod. “Thank you.”

Tim and Sasha disappear into the Archives on their separate missions. Jon takes a deep breath, and it echoes through Martin, a call of matching weariness. Martin wishes he wasn’t the cause of Jon’s concurrent exhaustion. Wishes he wasn’t a problem to which there is no obvious solution.

“Are you sure about this, Martin?” Jon asks. It’s almost the same way as he asked it during Martin’s statement—tentative but curious, except there’s something else there now. Martin is too afraid to identify it as sympathy.

“Yeah,” Martin replies, “I’ll be alright.”

“Let’s get the conference room ready, then,” Jon mutters, and begins leading them in the right direction.

By getting the conference room ready, Jon means finding the light switches that actually connect to the ceiling lights, turning on the electric heaters without blowing a fuse, and trying to make the place semi-inhabitable before the others return. The room is dark, oval and windowless, buried deep within the Archives and not at all suitable for actual conferences, at least not the kind that are meant to showcase their state-of-the-art facilities and research capacity.

This time, however, Jon occupies himself with pulling the comfiest chair (its legs don’t wobble, and the fabric-covered cushion hasn’t eroded beyond the point of no return) away from the table while still holding on to Martin as if he might fall over at any moment. He guides Martin into the chair with surprising tenderness and then helps him shuffle closer to the table so he can lean onto its surface for support.

“Time for another cereal bar, I think,” Jon announces, “What flavour can you stomach this time?”

Martin tries to think over the options. He knows that declining isn’t among them. With a sigh, he settles on: “Apple?”

There’s the sound of a zip and the crinkling of a plastic wrapper, and then Jon places a cereal bar next to Martin’s hand on the table. The packaging is pastel green, with _appley ever after_ written across it in a font that looks like handwriting, except it’s too symmetrical and rounded.

“Thanks.”

Jon paces across the room, to where the first electric heater is, and dares to switch it on. It lets out a cranking noise, but otherwise seems to drag itself towards life without too much protest. “I know I have already offered—”

“I need to do this, Jon,” Martin interrupts.

Jon moves on to the next radiator, his face turned away from Martin. “Alright. I… I can’t say I approve, but I do understand.”

“Thank you.”

Jon nods, just once, before resuming his task. Martin watches him, using the practiced, methodical way in which Jon moves around the room to distract himself as he eats the cereal bar. The green packaging makes Martin want to cry. He can’t place _why_. Perhaps it’s the compassionate childishness of the design, the cartoon apples smiling merrily at him from between the bubbly lettering. Perhaps because it feels like a gift, of more than food.

He tries not to think about this too much. It almost works.

* * *

“Shit,” Tim murmurs, when the tap clicks off and Martin’s recorded statement comes to an end, “Shit, Martin, we—we had _no idea_. Your phone—the _texts_ —”

Martin is almost grateful for the exhaustion, for the way he feels two steps removed from his body, in the conference room but not _inside_ the conversation. He’d barely heard the statement, his own voice telling a story that, even now, doesn’t feel like his. He lived it. He remembers. But no words on a tape will capture what it was truly like, and he almost pities this past version of himself, surrounded by static and the surety that giving a statement might make it go away. A record of horror, placed elsewhere, so it doesn’t have to live on inside of him.

But when has he ever been that lucky?

Tim’s guilt, though, cuts through the distance and tugs him partially back into the room. There’s a cutting familiarity to it, and Martin might not know what to do with his own guilt, but he will do anything to stop Tim feeling the same.

“Hey. Hey, Tim, it’s okay. Really. I’m—” Martin glances in Jon’s direction. Jon is glaring, a sharp look in his eyes that says: _if you say you are fine one more time, I will peel you._ “You couldn’t have known.”

Tim drags his hands through his hair. “But, come on, who doesn’t check-in with their friend during a two-week stomach bug? And those texts did _not_ sound right. I said to Sasha that it was weird, getting a text from you without emojis or kisses at the end or _anything_ , but I just thought you were ill and… god, Martin, I’m so sorry.”

Martin thinks he must be blushing—because _really_ , does Jon need to know that Martin absolutely over-uses emojis and puts at least four _x_ s at the end of any text to people who aren’t his boss or his landlord—but he’s too tired to feel the burn beneath his skin, the prickle of embarrassment in his chest.

“Tim’s right,” Sasha adds, and it’s testament to how badly Tim must be feeling that he doesn’t even smile at this admission, “We should have checked in with you, Martin. I’m sorry.”

Jon clears his throat, and they all shift to look at him. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I am your supervisor, Martin; it is my responsibility to check-in with you during an extended period of absence. From now on, we will be communicating regularly with each other to ensure nothing like this happens again. And our top priority, as researchers, is to understand why and how this happened. I know it will not undo what you experienced, but I hope it will be a step towards… making amends. For my oversight.”

“ _Our_ oversight,” Sasha adds, giving Jon a firm look.

“This really isn’t anyone’s fault,” Martin interjects, wishing he felt more present, had more energy to spare on easing their guilt, “You couldn’t have known. And if we’re going to be researching Jane Prentiss and—and the worms, I don’t want it to be about _me_. I’m just one person. In the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess. And, to be honest, that part was my fault really. And it wasn’t—I survived. I’m still here. So, yeah, I definitely don’t want it to happen to anyone else, but I—I’m not worth some sort of vengeful academic taskforce.”

“Vengeful academic taskforce,” Tim echoes, a hint of his usual humour creeping in to his tone, “I like the sound of that.”

“While I agree that academia is a poor vehicle for vengeance,” Jon interjects, shooting Tim an unimpressed glare, “Prentiss seems to have taken an express interest in the Institute.”

“What Jon’s trying to say is: this time, it’s personal,” Tim adds, in an action-movie voice that makes Sasha roll her eyes and Jon sigh loudly.

“It is in our interest as researchers and custodians of knowledge to direct our efforts into understanding Prentiss. She may well not be a threat, at least not to the general public; I would gladly accept a false hypothesis in this instance,” Jon explains, “However, we will approach this the same way we have our previous research endeavours: with professionalism and academic vigour. I urge you to join me in relinquishing any personal feelings regarding this case as we go forward.”

Tim eyebrows rise at _gladly accept_ and nearly disappear at _professionalism_ and _personal feelings_. Next to him, Sasha looks like she is mentally compiling a reading list about subjectivity and positionality in research. Martin is too exhausted, at this point, to contribute anything other than a nod of acknowledgement. He knows exactly what joke Tim would make if he wasn’t still feeling guilty; he’s been on the receiving end of Sasha’s lecturers about the academic obsession with a false idea of distance. But it’s all too much, right now. Easier to shut down. Easier to drift.

“Martin, I do not expect you to contribute anything further in this state. I am sure we will all have questions regarding your statement once we’ve processed our… individual reactions to its contents,” Jon continues, “In the meantime, as Dr. Müller said, you need time to rest and recover. Why don’t you get some sleep in document storage while we decide on our next steps?”

“Document storage?” Tim splutters. “No. No way. You’re not sleeping in that hovel. It’s bad enough when Jon naps in there! No. You can stay with me. I have a double bed. We’ll both fit.”

“Why don’t you stay with me?” Sasha says. “I have much better housemates than Tim _and_ a sofa bed in my bedroom that you can have all to yourself.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “Objectively true, but who’s gonna keep you warm in the night on that sofa bed? Not Sasha. And definitely not me.”

“ _Tim_.”

“Also, I have houseplants. They create a very calming atmosphere.”

“Yeah, and you also have Phil,” Sasha adds, “You’ve met Phil, haven’t you, Martin? What did you think of him?”

“Phil is a terrible person, yes, but he’s hardly ever in the flat.”

“This is a ridiculous conversation,” Jon mutters into his hand, leaning on the table with a deeply resigned weariness.

“Thank you,” Martin rushes to say, because he doesn’t want to offend by letting them think he agrees with Jon about the ridiculousness of the debate, “Really, thank you, both of you. But it’s probably best that I do stay in document storage. We don’t know how long this might go on for and I don’t want to impose and really, it’s not that bad in there. It’s cosy.”

Jon flinches at this description. Tim looks dubious.

“Martin—”

“Really,” Martin says, because he can’t stay with Tim or Sasha. It’s too much. The thought makes him feel vaguely sick. He’ll take up space, he’ll be an inconvenience, whatever respect they have for him will vanish. Their friendship isn’t strong enough to survive that. “I’ll be fine in document storage. And I think I will head there now, if that’s alright?”

Jon nods. “Go ahead.”

Sasha stands, her chair scraping against the thin, time-worn carpet. “We’ll come with you.”

“Get you settled in,” Tim adds, also standing.

Martin manages to stand on his own accord. But as he tries to move around the chair, his vision burst with spots, a marching parade of static across his eyeballs, and he has to grab on to the table for support. He blinks, trying to see the dizziness through, to resist the heaviness in his head that wants to drag him to the floor. He could sleep here. He could just lie down and sleep and not think about the worms or his space in the lives of his co-workers or the unmatched embarrassment of needing their attention, their help.

When his vision clears, he sees Jon half out of his seat, as if prepared to catch Martin if he fell. But Sasha and Tim have beat him to it, a gentle hand on both of his arms, and they stand in silent support on either side of him.

“I’m okay,” Martin whispers, his voice barely-there

“Let’s get you lying down,” Tim says.

Sasha and Tim each lace their arm through Martin’s, supporting him from both sides as they leave the conference room and follow the corridor towards document storage. The door is slightly ajar, and a too-bright pool of light spills out from the exposed bulb inside. Martin squints against the harshness as they get closer.

Not letting go of Martin’s arm, Tim kicks the door all the way open with the toe of his boot. They all shuffle, a little awkward, through the small doorway and into the storage room. It’s cold. And exactly as Martin left it: blanket half-thrown off the deflating air mattress, the old lightbulb buzzing above, the upside-down storage box acting as a bedside table. Home, for now.

“I can’t believe you called this _cosy_ ,” Tim says.

“The offer still stands,” Sasha adds, “If you change your mind at any time, you can call us.”

“You still have the emergency phone Jon gave you, right? It should have our numbers in. Do you want to check they’re the right ones before we leave you to it?”

“Yeah, I—” Manoeuvring his arms out of Sasha and Tim’s, Martin digs through the pockets of his coat. The Nokia is still there; Martin thinks these electronic bricks would be a constant even at the end of the world. But something else is missing. “ _Shit_.”

Martin is suddenly and incandescently furious with himself. He moves away from the twin pillars of Sasha and Tim’s support, collapsing on to the air mattress and lowing his face into his hands. There’s a dip, a whoosh of air, as Tim sits down next to him and then promptly nearly falls off the uneven mattress. Sasha, still standing, places a gentle hand on Martin’s shoulder, the tips of her fingers just brushing against the material of his coat.

“What’s wrong?” Tim asks softly.

Martin looks up. He’s never been this exhausted in his life, and it’s just _too much_. He can feel tears streaming down his cheeks. He feels detached from them, even as he knows they’re a manifestation of his tiredness and fear and anger and frustration, of all the things he wouldn’t dare say he felt out loud. 

“Hey, hey,” Sasha whispers, her grip on his shoulder tightening, “It’s alright.”

Martin lowers his face back into his hands. He digs his fingers into his eyes, trying to push away the tears. “I—the doctor at the hospital gave me some medication. And I left it in the taxi. God, it’s—I can’t do _anything right_.”

“That’s not your fault, Martin.” Tim places his hand on Martin’s back, rubbing circles between his shoulder blades. “Happens to all of us.”

“I fell asleep, though,” Martin mutters.

“That’s not surprising at all. And not something you can help. You must be exhausted.”

Sasha’s thumb moves soothingly against the shoulder seam of Martin’s coat. “How urgent is the medication? We can call a pharmacist if you need it right away or we’ll get onto the taxi company and find the original prescription.”

“It’s nothing urgent. It’s—rehydration solution and some supplements and my—my anxiety meds. Sertraline,” Martin tells them, still rubbing his knuckles into his eyes as if he can physically force the tears back inside of himself, “Couldn’t get the repeat prescription while I was stuck in my flat. It’s been over a week at this point. So, yeah. Not important.”

“Sounds pretty important to me,” Tim says, no-nonsense.

“Yep,” Sasha agrees, “We’ll get them for you as soon as we can.”

“I can help,” Martin offers, finally daring to look up.

Sasha smiles, kind but firm. “Nope. You’re going to sleep.”

“That’s your mission: sleep. And lots of it!” With gentle—but strangely practiced, as if he had tended to someone else with this simple and familiar care—hands, Tim helps Martin to recline onto the air mattress. He shuffles off the corner where he’d been sitting and kneels on the floor so he can tuck the blanket neatly over Martin. “There we are. That must feel better already.”

Martin feels too bad to lie to Tim, so he just nods. “Thanks.”

“We’re here for you, Martin,” Sasha says, “You can talk to us.”

Tim stands, giving Sasha a small smile when she helps him the rest of the way to his feet. “Yeah. You’re not alone.”

Martin manages a smile in return. “Thank you.”

“Can we leave the door ajar?” Sasha asks. “Just a little, so we can check in on you? We’ll do our best not to wake you up.”

“Unless the Institute’s on fire.”

“Tim, that’s not helpful,” Sasha hisses. To Martin, she says: “And that’s not going to happen.”

Martin feels his eyes starting to drift shut. “Hope not.”

Sasha and Tim back slowly towards the door. “Sleep well.”

“Rest up.”

The gentle creak of the door, and Sasha and Tim whispering to each other, is the last thing Martin hears before he sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is going to be one (1) more chapter but I PROMISE that will be the last one!!! pinky promise!!!! my toxic trait is that i am incapable of planning creative things with any degree of accuracy :/
> 
> ALSO this is your friendly reminder to take your meds and refill that prescription!!!! They are important and so are you!!! Take care of yourselves friends 🌻💛


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter content warnings: nausea, flashbacks, canon-typical worms, swearing, self-depreciation, medication, food, dismissal/belittlement of trauma, toxic work environments, exercise mention, anxiety, second-hand embarrassment, familial estrangement, accidental self-harm, dermatillomania, trichotillomania, blood, confusion, disorientation, panic attacks.

Jon taps his finger against the conference room table in time with the rhythmic clanking from one of the radiators. He would feel better if he had something to _do_ , somewhere to focus, but his mind circles back again and again to Martin.

If he were in Martin’s position, he would want information, understanding, _truth._ His mind goes to a place he seldom lets it, and he tries not to look head-on as it twists from a thought into a memory, vivid from each screaming or silent re-visit. He lowers his face into his hands, pushing his fingers into his eyes as if the static that created would erase the vision of a book and a door and a—

“Rough day, huh?” It seems to have started as a joke, but Tim’s voice softens quickly into sympathy as he steps back into the room, followed closely by Sasha. 

Jon drags his head from his hands. Back in the room. _Back in the room_. He repeats it in his mind, over and over, until he almost believes it. He doesn’t want to speak, but he feels like he owes them something. He’s their boss, no matter how much he has failed so far to occupy that position with any confidence or aptitude.

“Yes, Tim, I think we’ve all had a rather rough day,” Jon says, glad his voice doesn’t convey the way he feels tender and volatile inside, like a bruise, “Martin most of all.”

Tim pulls his chair away from the table and drops into it with a loud huff. “God, yeah. I can’t believe we…”

Sasha moves towards Tim, placing her hand on his shoulder. Jon watches her thumb move up and down, a gentle, soothing rhythm, and feels something like anger clench in his chest. Or jealousy.

“I know we all feel guilty,” Sasha says, looking at Jon as if she expects him to protest, but he doesn’t have the energy to pretend, “But guilt isn’t going to undo it—or help Martin right now.”

“You’re right,” Jon replies, “There should be a statement from Jane Prentiss herself somewhere in these Archives. Whatever the truth of Martin’s _encounter_ , we won’t be able to make sense of it until we—”

Sasha shakes her head. “That wasn’t me saying we needed to do more research, Jon.”

Tim enacts an exaggerated gasp. “Sasha James? Refusing to work? Is it really you?”

Sasha pokes him good-naturedly on the shoulder before retracting her hand. “Martin is stuck in the Archives for—well, we don’t know how long. It’s going to take us more than a day to track down Prentiss’s statement in this mess. But I think we can make Martin comfortable, settle him in here, in that time.”

“And I’m voting for that taking priority,” Tim adds swiftly.

“Me too,” Sasha agrees.

“You’re outnumbered, Jon.”

“I never cast my vote,” Jon replies dryly.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sasha interrupts, moving away from Tim and pulling the wheely whiteboard away from the wall so that she’s standing at the head of the conference table, looking like she’s about to give a presentation, albeit with no notes. “Right, we need to plan this properly.”

“We should start with a name,” Tim says, “Operation Love and Cherish Martin Blackwood.”

Jon sighs. He wants to bury his head in his hands again. He wants also to smile, to be grateful to Tim for this distraction, which has pulled him away from the memory of— _don’t go back there. Back in the room instead. Back in the room._ “I reserve the right to veto any and all name suggestions.”

Tim swivels in his chair to look Jon dead in the eye. “Are you, then? Vetoing, that is?”

Jon sighs again. “No.”

Sasha shares a grin with Tim and then turns, to write on the whiteboard in her impeccable handwriting, which survives even suboptimal conditions like the half-dead pens that only come in primary colours: _Operation Love and Cherish Martin Blackwood._

“You are both ridiculous,” Jon mutters.

“You could have vetoed it while you had the chance,” Tim sing-songs, “And come on. After all of this, don’t you think we deserve a bit of ridiculousness?”

“What is our starting point, Sasha?” Jon asks, pointedly ignoring him.

“We’re going to split up and take on separate tasks,” Sasha says. Before she can continue, Tim raises his hand. “What, Tim?”

“May I suggest we call them something other than tasks?”

Jon has seen this routine of pretentious professionalism before, mostly at his expense when he has assigned them the same task and they’re bored by it. But today, it’s an almost welcome distraction.

“Will you propose an alternative?” Sasha replies.

“Indeed. I would like to propose,” Tim says stuffily, “That instead of tasks—which, I hope we can all agree, has some negative connotations—we should call them missions.”

“Agreed and implemented with immediate effect,” Sasha declares, then returns to writing on the whiteboard, “Here are my proposed list of individual missions: contact the taxi company and track down the missing medication, which I will take charge of—”

“Shit,” Jon mutters, reflexively, before he remembers that they will hear, that he actually said that _out loud_. He feels himself burning from the inside with a mixture of embarrassment and self-hatred, and he’s on the verge of trying to reel back his authority when he notices Tim and Sasha’s reactions.

“What?” Tim asks, swivelling so quickly in his chair that he almost falls off. “What’s wrong? Did you see a worm? Where—?”

“I didn’t see a _worm_ , Tim,” Jon snaps, “I merely realised I should have checked, when leaving the taxi, that Martin hadn’t left the medication behind.”

No. _No_. That’s not how he meant to say it. It’s not _Martin’s_ fault the medication got left behind. Jon remembers, with startling clarity, the moment he realised Martin was asleep. They were in a queue somewhere near the garish theatre fronts he typically avoids because they give him a headache, and he was looking out of the window of the taxi and watching cyclists pass by, making a mental tally of how many were wearing helmets, in order to distract himself. The taxi had moved again, making it a few spaces forward before the lights went red, and he had turned towards Martin to check if he was feeling nauseous, if the stopping and starting of the car was uncomfortable for him, only to find him fast asleep. His head had been tipped back, half against the seat and half against the window, and his mouth open just slightly, lips barley parted. His breaths were soft, fragile things. In that vivid moment, Jon remembers thinking of them like clouds—forgotten individually, but forming something soothing and necessary and comforting overall. He’d always liked days that were half-sun, half-cloud. Always liked the contrast. The familiarity, and not needing to guess at which one would prevail.

It was Jon’s fault. Jon’s fault the medication was still in the taxi, Jon’s fault they had had to take a taxi back from the hospital in the first place, Jon’s fault that Martin had even _been_ there to start with—

“—not fair, Jon. You know how bad Martin is feeling already.” Sasha had, apparently, been talking while Jon was following this memory, combing it for details.

“Yeah, he’s pretty upset. Please don’t bring it up whenever he’s up and about. I know he values your opinion and it would really hurt his feelings if he thought you blamed him, too,” Tim adds.

Jon should say something. Should tell them the truth—that he doesn’t blame Martin, but rather himself. But there is a part of him that whispers this is too much, that he would reveal a side to himself he has never been ready to share. Instead, he fixes Tim with a firm look. “I won’t say anything to him. And I would appreciate it if we could move on to the next item on our agenda.”

“Mission,” Tim says, correcting him.

“Continue,” Jon says to Sasha, “Please.”

“Right, so I’m on the taxi mission. Tim, I thought you could go to the shops and get Martin something to wear, since he only left his flat with his PJs and I don’t think he wants to work in those,” Sasha explains.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Sensible clothes, Tim,” Sasha adds, “ _Work_ clothes. And maybe a few more casual and comfy stuff for out of hours.”

Jon digs into the pocket of his coat—he realises, belatedly, that he’d yet to remove it; he flinches again at how perpetually cold the Archives are, how Martin will have to tolerate it outside of work hours, too—and pulls out his wallet. There’s a black credit card inside, with a green owl in the top corner, looking vaguely but unsettling omnipotent.

“Tim, I am giving you the Institute credit card—”

Tim grins. “Oh, hell yeah—”

Jon rotates in his seat. “Sasha, I am giving you the Institute credit card. The pin is—”

“The year the Institute was founded,” Sasha interrupts, “I know.”

“Dare I ask how?”

“It’s pretty easy to guess.”

“That is true, I suppose,” Jon assents, “I did bring it up with Elias, but he assured me he kept a very close eye on the account for any suspicious activity and that I ‘needn’t worry about bureaucracy when I have an Archive to run.’”

Tim laughs, the sound short and spluttering with disbelief. “Spot on Elias impression.”

“That doesn’t leave this room,” Jon says.

“You have our word,” Sasha pledges, “So I assume this means Tim and I have swapped missions?”

“Yes. Will that be a problem?”

“Not at all. I’ll pick up some food while I’m out too, then. Any requests?”

“Could you get me—?”

“I’ll write a list,” Jon interrupts, before he realises what he’s saying. Now he has to plan what Martin is going to eat for—well, he doesn’t know how long. How long does it take to recover from something like what he’s been through? Jon doesn’t want to think of his own points of reference, where he might pull this impossible figure from his own experience. 

“That just leaves your mission, Jon.”

“You should probably stay here,” Sasha adds, “In case anyone comes in to give a statement or Elias asks any questions.”

Jon sighs. How many times can he do that in one meeting—if this can even be called a meeting? “I had been meaning to speak with Elias about increasing security around the Institute. It’s… concerning, to say the least, that statement givers might be seeking any of you out after the fact.”

Sasha folds her arms, one hand lifted awkwardly to tap the whiteboard pen against her chin. “Do you think it might happen again?”

“I don’t think we can rule that out,” Jon replies, “Martin seems deeply affected by his encounter with Jane Prentiss, but it’s difficult at this point to evaluate exactly how much of a threat she is to the rest of us. But It would still be wise to proceed with caution. At the very least, I would like to avoid any of us having to take time off after coming down with… parasitic worms.”

“How touching,” Tim says sarcastically, placing his hand over his heart, “You really do care.”

Jon pointedly checks his watch. “It’s two p.m. If either of you have any intention of leaving on time today, you had best get to work. Although work is perhaps too a generous term.”

With an exaggerated stretch, Tim moves away from the table and stands. “I better go make some calls.”

Sasha throws down the whiteboard pen and rounds the table, sliding the credit card away from Jon. “And I have some shopping to do. Wanna catch me up if you get done with making calls?”

“Sure,” Tim agrees, “Keep me updated.”

“Will do. And you’ll send me the food list, Jon?”

“Yes.”

“Great.” Sasha grins. “Well, our missions start now.”

* * *

Elias is decidedly unhelpful.

Besides the fact that it takes Jon nearly an hour to locate him—Rosie was sure he was in his office, but it transpires that he was in Artefact Storage, conducting a spontaneous review of their health and safety incidents from February—Elias insists he is too busy to talk on account of running late for a meeting with some shareholders. And then he dismisses Martin’s experience almost immediately when Jon pushes the urgency of the matter.

Jon doesn’t know why this makes him incandescently furious when he’d spent the duration of his search for Elias trying to rationalise the situation, to explain away Jane Prentiss and the worms and whatever that final text meant about _the Archivist’s crimson fate_. These leaps of logic had included such absurd ideas as Martin making the whole thing up. The worms in the jar being the spray-painted garden variety. The whole thing an elaborate scheme to get two weeks off work, with the missing phone and mysterious text messages being the cunning cherry on top.

With the way Elias had looked at him, Jon is almost sure that Elias had known he was thinking this. He’d smiled as if it was their little inside joke. Just between the two of them. A thing to be laughed at privately, but at another’s expense nonetheless. He had eventually told Jon to email him any suggestions about security—if he really insisted on it, this added with a wink—before disappearing into the shareholder meeting.

By the time Jon returns to the Archives, he’s vibrating with an almost untameable energy. He thinks he might like to go for a run. Georgie used to run when she was angry. She said it was hard to keep hold of rage with her feet pounding against the pavement, although Jon had never particularly understood this himself. Maybe he should call Georgie. Would she know anything about worms? Or parasites? Or parasitic worms?

Good _god_ , what is he thinking? He’s not going to call anyone. He has no one to call, not really, and he’s more than capable of dealing with this himself. He has to be.

He hears voices when he reaches the open plan office where Tim, Sasha and Martin’s desks are. There’s a little bi flag standing in Tim’s jar of mismatched pens. Sasha’s mini desk Henry the Hoover—useless to begin with—is still disassembled after it stopped working last Monday and she insisted she could fix it. Martin has a jar decorated with faded Pokémon stickers next to his computer, which is always full of rhubarb and custard sweets that Jon never takes, no matter how many times Martin offers. For the first time, Jon thinks, he feels almost settled here. And now it’s under threat.

The voices. They sound again from the document storage room where Martin should be sleeping. If someone has disturbed—

“I know you’re not the biggest fan of chamomile.” Oh. It’s Tim, his voice much softer than usual. “But it’s the only thing without caffeine that we have and I thought you probably wouldn’t want anything too stimulating while you’re trying to rest.”

“Thanks, Tim.” Martin’s voice is still cracked and weak with exhaustion. “This is really generous of you.”

“No worries at all, mate. You do it for us all the time.”

“Not because I—I mean, I—I don’t do it because I expect you to—”

“Hey, hey, Martin. It’s alright.”

Martin inhales. It shakes, but his voice is surprisingly steady when he speaks. “Tim, I need to tell you something.”

“Of course. Should I be sitting down for this?”

This manages to pull a weak laugh from Martin. That same feeling tightens in Jon’s chest like a fist, primed for a punch—not quite anger, not quite jealousy, but something just as insidious and unwelcome.

“On what?” Martin replies. “It’s not exactly the Ritz in here.”

“Could definitely do with a few fairy lights. Maybe a beanbag. Jon isn’t the most frivolous when it comes to—”

“Oh, god, I didn’t mean to—I’m really grateful. That he let me stay here. I don’t really know where else I would go.” Another laugh, but this time it’s humourless and thin. And cut off almost immediately when Martin rushes to add: “Not that I’m not—it means a lot to me. That you and Sasha offered and—oh, god, what am I saying now? Just shut _up_ , Martin.”

“Martin, really, it’s fine. I know this is a lot to process. And I didn’t offer out of obligation. I offered because I’m your friend, which means I also wasn’t at all offended when you said no.”

“I told the doctor it was your fault,” Martin blurts.

There’s a moment of stunned silence. An equally stunned laugh. “What?”

“I told the doctor,” Martin continues, almost so quiet Jon wouldn’t hear, expect that he knows exactly what Martin is going to say, “I told the doctor that I’d been camping with you and that was why I was exhausted and dehydrated. Because we didn’t plan it—or _you_ didn’t plan it properly, and we went beyond our limits, and then—it’s just that I didn’t know what else to say. Tim, I’m so sorry. I know you would never—oh. You’re laughing.”

Tim is laughing. But he stops abruptly the moment Martin points this out. “God, Martin, I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at _you_. That’s just… it’s funny. It’s funny that some random doctor has probably put me on their mental blacklist for taking you on a wild camping trip. And I mean, what else were you gonna say? _Oh hey, doc, I got held hostage in my flat for two weeks by some creepy worm lady._ I get it. I really do. And if you need my forgiveness, you have it, but I promise I’m not upset in the slightest.”

Martin laughs, too, but it sounds hysterical and disbelieving. “You’re not?”

“Oh, Martin, did you think I’d be—?”

“I just—not because—I mean, because it means a lot to you. Being safe. Taking care of your… friends.”

Jon notes the way Martin chokes on this word, as if he almost can’t bring himself to say it, to believe it applies to himself. He shouldn’t be standing here. He’s playing voyeur to a conversation he has no right to overhear. But he doesn’t move.

“Exactly,” Tim quirks.

“What do you mean?”

“Taking care of my friends _is_ important to me,” Tim continues, “And sometimes the way we take care of each other is unconventional. Might not even look like taking care of each other. But if using me as a scapegoat to get out of a tricky situation is your only option, go for it. You’re forgiven. Always. Not that there was anything to forgive in the first place.”

“Tim,” Martin murmurs.

“Would it help to know that it makes me feel better?” Tim’s tone matches Martin’s now—stripped back of any levity, any unseriousness, and infused with a tenderness that again awakens that coiled knot in Jon’s chest. “I wasn’t there for you today. At the hospital. So it makes me feel a little better to know that, in a very roundabout way, I could help. If that’s the only thing that makes you feel better, then I’m grateful. You helped me as much as I helped you.”

“Okay,” Martin says, his voice still quiet but holding slightly more conviction.

“Also, I’m definitely taking you camping when you’re up for it.” Tim’s voice reclaims its vivacity. “I’m thinking Wales. Have you ever been to Wales?”

“I’m not—oh, actually, yeah. I think I went there once with my, um, with my mum. She had a friend who lived in Caerphilly. Is that how you say it?”

“Caerphilly, yeah.” There’s a pause from Tim. And then: “Have you spoken to her recently?”

“Who, Mum’s friend? Nah, that was well over ten years ago now and—”

“Martin—”

“I know,” Martin says, more tersely than Jon expects from him. But he softens immediately: “I know.”

“I’m not saying you have to—”

“I know,” Martin repeats, as if he doesn’t know what else to say, and Jon shouldn’t be here, he shouldn’t be here, he needs to—

“Look, I can’t tell you how to deal with family. God knows I…”

A small, wet huff from Martin. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Tim clears his throat. “So, thoughts on camping?”

“Uh…”

“No worms, I promise.”

“ _Tim._ ”

“Too soon?”

“No, it’s just…” Martin laughs. “I’ve never put a tent up before.”

Through the door, Jon hears the familiar sound of Tim thumping Martin gently on the shoulder. “Never too late to learn. Sasha and I’ll teach you how.”

“What about Jon?”

Oh, now Jon should really leave. Take this as an opportunity. A sign. But he has to know, with an almost ferocious hunger, what Martin means by this question.

“What about him?”

Martin laughs nervously. “Has he ever come camping with you?”

“Unfortunately not,” Tim replies jovially, “I invited him a few times, but—”

Jon takes the opportunity. He feels like his is overriding an unfamiliar but powerful instinct when he forces himself out of his position of listening, watching, waiting. But he can’t stand here while they talk about _him_. His entrance into the room is so abrupt on account of his nervous, bubbling energy that he thinks he genuinely pulls off having only just arrived.

“Oh, Martin, Tim,” he adds for good measure, “There you are.”

Martin blushes rather furiously. Jon’s seen him do this before, of course, but it seems to take on a whole new significance here. But Tim just grins, taking Jon’s sudden arrival in his stride, as if the possibility of Jon overhearing their conversation doesn’t bother him at all.

“Everything alright?” Jon prompts when neither of them speaks.

“Just dropped by to check on Martin and accidentally woke him up,” Tim replies, shooting Martin a guilty smile, although Jon imagines they’ve already forgiven each other at length for these tiny slights they seem to care so deeply about. “I thought the least I could do was bring him some tea.”

“Right,” Jon says, drawing out the word.

“Are you okay, Jon?” Martin asks, nervous yet determined.

“I’m fine.” Jon looks around the small room. The already half-deflated air mattress. The distinct lack of blankets. He makes a note to send another email to Sasha, asking her to pick up some blankets and extra socks. “Tim, I’m sure there’s something you’re meant to be doing.”

“I’m heading over to the taxi headquarters in ten minutes. I was just checking on Martin before I left and then—”

“You woke him up. Yes, Tim, I was present less than a minute ago.” Jon curses internally. Why draw attention to how long he’s been there for? That’s a terrible idea.

“It wasn’t Tim’s fault,” Martin mutters.

Jon hums, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “You should go back to sleep, Martin.”

“I mean, it is nearly four in the afternoon,” Martin replies with a small, self-depreciating laugh, “Maybe I should be helping with—”

“No,” Jon and Tim say simultaneously.

“Right.” For some reason, this seems to make Martin deflate. He shrinks back towards the wall, curling around the mug of chamomile as if for protection. “Right.”

Jon frowns. Perhaps Martin mistook his and Tim’s concern for dismissal, even disapproval. But before Jon can unpick Martin’s reaction, Tim stands with an obnoxious groan.

“God, my back aches after just sitting on that,” Tim complains, “Anyway, I’m off to Hammersmith and then I’ll probably meet Sasha in Central after. Is that cool?”

“Yes, fine, off you go,” Jon says with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Tim throws Martin a smile before heading off on his errand.

Jon hovers awkwardly inside the storage room, trying to mentally calculate a reasonable escape route, a way to evade any awkward conversation they might construct within this tiny, uncomfortable space and regret later.

“Is the tea warm enough?” Jon blurts.

Martin blinks at him. “What?”

“The tea,” Jon echoes, like it’s obvious and Martin is the one creating an issue, “Has it cooled down?”

Martin rubs tiredly at his eyes. “What do you—are you asking whether it’s too hot or too cold?”

“I should think it was obvious.”

“I’m sorry, Jon, I’m just _really_ tired right now and I’m not—I’m not really with it.”

Martin looks at him, eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion. His hair is a mess, curls sticking upwards and askew on one side from sleep, and there’s the vaguest trace of a pillow stretching from beneath his eye to the edge of his mouth like a scar that Jon wants to smooth out with his thumb.

For the sake of consistency, he tells himself. Symmetry. It makes the freckles on one side of Martin’s face look incongruous against the other.

“I simply meant,” Jon continues, forcing his tone into something gentler, “Do you want me to put it in the microwave for you? If it’s cooled down too much, that is.”

“God, no,” Martin blurts. His eyes widen almost comically, and he opens his mouth for an elongated moment before finding the right words: “I mean, no—no, thank you, Jon.”

Jon supresses a smile. “I might not have as strong an opinion on tea as you do, Martin, but I also share your conviction that it does not belong anywhere near a microwave.”

“Oh.” Martin releases a small laugh, which sounds closer to an exhale of relief. “Oh, right. That’s… good to know.”

Jon frowns. This makes it easier not to smile. “It is?”

“Yeah, just because I—well, not that I’ve been microwaving your tea anyway. But I…” Martin looks down at the threadbare blanket, picking at a loose string. “Yeah.”

“Right. Yes. Anyway, I had best…” Jon clears his throat. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

Martin looks up at him with a weak smile. “Thank, Jon.”

Jon nods and evacuates the storage room before he can say anything else to further embarrass himself.

* * *

When Jon opens his emails, Sasha’s reply is the first unread option to appear:

> **To: Jonathan Sims**
> 
> **From: Sasha James**
> 
> **Subject: RE: Shopping List**
> 
> Thanks for this, Jon! And you can text me if you want. I have my phone on me. In fact, I’m writing this email on my phone right now. Hope Martin’s okay back at the Institute. Let me know if there’s anything else you want me to grab while I’m out :)
> 
> Sasha
> 
> Sent from my iPhone

Jon looks at this last line with a sigh of fond resentment. He’s sure Sasha left it there to remind him that he’s a dinosaur, which she does from time to time in the name of, he hopes, affectionate teasing. Nonetheless, he replies to her email with a disproportionately formal request that she also buy some blankets while she is out, alongside a warning that Tim will soon be joining her after his visit to the taxi headquarters in Hammersmith.

He should really email Elias. But what can he say that will justify his request? It’s not procrastination, he tells himself, if it’s a task he would have done next anyway, and so he spends over an hour filling out overtime forms for Tim, Sasha and Martin instead of even drafting an email. Usually, it would be arduous, especially because there’s a somewhat convoluted approach to requesting that Martin be paid in full for the two weeks he spent locked in his flat by Jane Prentiss. But he finds he almost deliberately enjoys the distraction, because anything, in this moment, is better than trying to write an email to Elias.

Then he organises his office.

Although organise is perhaps too generous a term, and in fact he finds himself turning the small room upside down as if Prentiss’s statement will materialise at any moment from the familiar mess. The steadily-growing pile of statements that won’t record digitally are somehow still out of order when he’s done with them, and he manages to find the staple remover that he’s been needing for weeks at the exact moment that he actually could really do with a paperclip.

He sits down at his computer after, finally resigned to writing the email, and instead finds himself on eBay, looking through old bedframes and mattresses that might potentially fit inside the storage room. He’d thought he would quickly find one better than the air mattress, but most of the options are stained or thin or rickety. And he feels like owes Martin something comfortable, at the very least.

Martin. His minds drifts back to the storage room. Perhaps he should check on Martin. It’s been nearly two hours since Tim’s departure, and Jon hasn’t heard or seen Martin in that time. He’d dismissed this as a good sign, during his ransacking of the office: Martin needed rest. But now the silence of the Archives feels oppressive.

He’s about to stand when Martin materialises in the door to his office. For a moment, Jon thinks he’s hallucinating from his own lack of sleep. But the Martin in his memory, the point of reference, is warm and smiling—the familiarity of this picture matching the familiarity of his annoyance. He thinks it would be that Martin who came to him in dreams, offering kindness Jon has never deserved.

This Martin is pale, his skin a starched green-grey around the corners of his trembling mouth. His eyes are lined with red and sunken in purple, and he looks _lost_ , like he is staring at a similarly unreal apparition of Jon. He’s shaking. Jon can see this even from behind his desk. Breathing so hard that Jon can hear it, too. And clutched between his hands is the emergency phone, jolting with every tremor that wrecks Martin’s frame.

“Martin,” Jon manages, standing so quickly his chair topples.

Jon rounds the desk, barely avoiding tripping on the rubbish bin he’d dragged closer to his desk to aid his clear-out. Martin flinches away from the sound of Jon’s shoes clipping the base of the plastic container, and he raises his hands to his head so that his face is half-hidden, his forearms the only part of his body fully exposed to Jon. With a start, Jon notices they are covered in fresh scratches, bleeding lazily—the sort that can be attributed to fingernails. 

“Martin,” Jon ventures again, trying to keep his voice soft.

Martin curls into himself protectively. He clutches the phone against his skull, the skin on his fingers and knuckles a stark white, as if he wants to crush it. “Where is he?”

_Fuck_. Jon just stops himself from saying it out loud. That won’t help Martin, and it probably won’t even help himself either. But Dr. Müller said to call an ambulance if Martin showed any signs of confusion, and this seems—he reaches for the landline on his desk.

“Tim,” Martin adds, “Jon, where’s Tim?”

Jon clutches the phone in his hand, ready to lift it from the receiver. But something about the way Martin is behaving is too familiar, and not in the way Dr. Müller outlined at the hospital.

“Martin,” Jon says, trying to keep his voice level, “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Tim—he was—he was _just here_ ,” Martin chokes out, “And now I can’t—can’t—”

Jon’s hand moves from the phone to his desk, clinging to the edge of it for support. “You can’t what, Martin?”

“He said I could call.” The words fall out of Martin’s mouth in a rush, blurring together. “He said—he said I could—I tried to—I tried, I really tried.”

Jon lifts his hand from the desk, extending it slowly towards the fists Martin has clenched against his head. “Can I have a look at—?”

“ _No_ ,” Martin snaps, pulling himself abruptly away from Jon. He stumbles, his back hitting the wall next to the door, and then sinks to the floor as if his strings have been cut. He draws his knees up and curls around them, the same defensive pose as before but shrunken.

In slow, deliberate movements, Jon covers the distance between his desk and the wall. He sits down across from Martin, cross-legged, trying to exude calm. “Martin, I think you’re having a panic attack. Has this happened to you before?”

Martin freezes for a moment before sinking back into quivering. It’s like he’s desperately cold, unable to source any heat. “Yes. Yes, but—this isn’t—Tim was _right here_.”

“I know. He was here. You’re right,” Jon tells Martin. He hopes his voice is smooth, matter-of-fact. No arguments, but no rough edges either, nothing Martin can hurt himself with. “But he went out while you were asleep. That was nearly two hours ago. Do you remember?”

“There were—” A gulping breath. It seems to be getting harder for him to breathe. “There were worms.”

“Where?”

“I was in—in my flat. Stockwell. That’s where I live. I live in Stockwell.”

“I know,” Jon murmurs, “But we’re not in Stockwell. This is the Magnus Institute. In Chelsea.”

There’s a high-pitched laugh from inside the clenched cocoon Martin has made of himself. “I know. I know that.”

“There’s no harm in checking, is there?” Jon flinches at the defensiveness in his voice the moments the words leave his mouth. He takes a deep breath. “Martin, can you tell me specifically where you saw the worms?”

“My flat—it’s not very big.” Another laugh, caught and broken against the well-moored rocks of Martin’s panic. It seems to scrape against his throat, leeching even more of his oxygen. “Cosy. Is that what—what people say?”

“Martin.”

“There’s my bed. And my sofa. I was just… I was just _sitting there_. Why would I—?” Martin murmurs, the end of each sentence almost lost to Jon, “And I—I was stuck. Trapped.”

“By the worms?”

“I don’t—yes. Yes, the worms. They were crawling _everywhere_.” A violent shudder. “All over my sofa. It was grey. My sofa isn’t grey. My sofa is—my sofa, it’s—I can’t… can’t remember what colour my sofa is.”

“That’s alright,” Jon says, inching closer to Martin. This time, he doesn’t flinch away, despite the grating sound of the old carpet scraping at Jon’s knees as he moves. “Martin, I think you’re describing a nightmare.”

“A nightmare?”

There’s a peek of Martin’s eyes, wide and tear-stained, over the knees he’s clutching to his body. His breathing is still erratic. His spine seems to move and stretch unnaturally against the wall behind him as the panic rips through his lungs.

“Yes,” Jon echoes, “A nightmare.”

Martin looks up, so that this whole face is visible. Jon notices that there are scratches along the left side of his chin, too, just like the ones on his arms.

“But Tim…” Martin says. “Tim was there. He was _right there_.”

“That was before you fell asleep, Martin. You were held hostage in your flat for two weeks by Jane Prentiss, but the worms never got inside. They never got close to your sofa. You escaped. You came here, to the Magnus Institute, and you’ve been sleeping in the document storage room next to my office. Tim was there. He bought you a cup of tea.”

“Camomile,” Martin whispers.

“That’s right.”

“Oh, god, I—” Martin swallows. “I think I might—”

Jon reaches for the rubbish bin and places it next to Martin. Martin leans over it, still shaking, but he doesn’t vomit.

“Keep breathing,” Jon encourages. He tries to keep his own breathing regular, deliberate and loud enough that Martin can mirror it. “In time with me.”

A fresh wave of tears well in Martin’s eyes. “I can’t.”

“You can. You are.”

“Jon—”

“In time with me.” Jon breathes in and out, again at volume and with intent. He uses his hand to demonstrate this, as if conducting an orchestra inside of himself, and to his surprise, Martin follows this gesture with desperate precision. “Just like that.”

“I can’t feel my legs,” Martin whimpers.

Jon can feel Martin’s legs. They’re touching his now, and they seem to be the inconsistent epicentre of the trembles that pulse through him. His legs clench violently but sporadically against Jon’s in a sharper, more painful pattern than the rest of his body. 

“That happens to me during a panic attack, too.” This, a whispered confession from Jon.

Martin takes a breath after Jon’s statement. Jon cannot bring himself to regret it. But while it seems like he’s finally getting more oxygen, Martin’s stomach spasms suddenly enough with the deeper breath that he lists towards the bin again.

“I hate—hate feeling sick.”

“Keep breathing. In. Out. In. Out.”

“My legs,” Martin says again, his voice pitching higher with panic, “I can’t—and my chest. Shit, my _chest_.”

“Martin, look at me.”

Martin looks.

“This is a panic attack. I know it’s hard to believe now, but you have survived this before and you will survive it again.” Jon keeps his eyes fixed on Martin. “I _promise_.”

Martin’s breathing doesn’t level as quickly as Jon would like, but Jon’s promise seems to hold enough weight that Martin relaxes his hands, letting them fall away from his head. Martin rolls his shoulders, although the tension doesn’t dissipate from them fully. There’s a moment when Jon thinks they might be beyond the worst of it.

But then the emergency phone clatters to the floor.

Martin jolts away from it, nearly collapsing across the floor. He shudders so forcefully when Jon reaches for him that he immediately retracts his hand. His breathing picks up a frantic, keening edge again.

“Alright. It’s alright,” Jon soothes, “Martin, can I—can I touch you?”

Martin nods, just once, a single, jerking motion. Jon places a gentle hand on Martin’s shoulder where he’s half-lying between the wall and the carpeted floor.

“You are safe. You are going to survive this,” Jon tells him.

Martin gasps, almost laughs, but it’s sad and twisted. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

“I know. I know it doesn’t. But—”

“But I’ve done this before,” Martin croaks.

“Exactly.”

Martin coughs, gags. Jon pushes the bin closer to him, but Martin gives a sharp shake of his head, tipping back against the wall.

“Don’t think I’m gonna be sick now,” Martin says, “Just, uh—my mouth is really dry.”

Jon moves to pull his legs beneath him, ready to stand, to get water and maybe some paracetamol, but Martin’s hand clamps around his wrist.

“Please don’t…” Martin swallows. “Can you stay? For a bit.”

Jon settles back down again. “Of course.”

There’s a clock hung above the doorway of Jon’s office and, with his hand on Martin’s shoulder as they breathe in tandem, Jon can see the face of his watch with surprising clarity. He lets himself count the time even as he tells Martin to focus on breathing, not on how long it’s taking, not on where he needs to be in the next second or minute or hour.

Jon knows intimately that there is no limit to these things, no logic of time to be applied here. He doesn’t remember the panic attack itself that lasted the duration of a three-hour exam he sat at Oxford, but rather the bookends of that blackout terror where he moved as if through syrup through the motions of arriving at and leaving the grandiose hall where it took place. He remembers sleeping through his alarm the next day, not being able to eat anything when he did wake, the way his muscles ached as if he’d exercised. At the time, he couldn’t even name it. But with hindsight, he has enough experience to guide himself through a panic attack with some effectiveness—and, he hopes now, Martin, too.

At the ten-minute mark, Martin’s breathing has deepened with slightly more consistency. By twenty minutes, he’s almost breathing normally, but the trembling hasn’t abated much. Jon aches in sympathy for the way he knows Martin’s muscles will hurt tomorrow, after he’s slept. He knows how these things are longer-lived than the panic attack itself. His own experiences have been enduring. When, at thirty minutes, Martin is still shaking, still breathing a little faster than average, but no longer crying, Jon tries again to ask questions.

“Do you want to sit down?” Jon inclines his head towards the chair in the opposite corner, where he lets visitors sit. Martin had given his statement in that very chair.

Martin nods shakily. Jon moves his hand from Martin’s shoulder to his elbow and helps him first to sit up fully, then to stand. His legs fold beneath him, and Jon has to loop his other arm beneath Martin’s armpit to stop them both collapsing back onto the floor. But after the initial wobble, Martin manages to walk with limited support to the chair. He sinks into it, curling his shoulders inwards even as he seems to find some relief from having a proper seat.

Jon rounds his desk, picks up his chair and sets it back into its usual position. He falls into it ungracefully, too tired for propriety, and looks across at Martin. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” Martin mutters, with the smallest curve of his lips.

“Yes, I would imagine so,” Jon says. Some of the usual stuffiness has returned to his voice. He’s never been so reassured by the way his own voice sounds, the distance it reinstates between them.

“I’m so sorry, Jon, I should—I didn’t—”

“Martin,” Jon interrupts, “I know I can be… harsh, at times, but even I wouldn’t reprimand an employee for having a panic attack in my office.”

Martin’s eyes lose focus for a moment. “I was—I dreamed I was still in my flat.”

“Back in the room, Martin. With me,” Jon says.

Martin forces his gaze to meet Jon’s. “It wasn’t right. I recognised it, but I didn’t. And I think—I think Tim was there? We were talking about something… He said something funny. I was laughing. But I was trapped between my sofa and my bed and just watching these worms—”

“Best not to think about it.”

Martin wraps his arms around himself. “Yeah. Yeah, best not. I, um… when I woke up, I think I tried to call Tim. But there’s no signal in the storage room and I just—I blacked out after that. Panicked.”

Jon wants to make a note of the fact that there’s no signal in the storage room, but he’s misplaced his notebook in the re-shuffle of his office. He’s about to dive into the drawers of his desk in search of it when Martin speaks again, and the thought vanishes and is replaced.

“It really does feel a bit like dying,” Martin whispers.

Jon looks down at his desk. “I know.”

“Do you—how did—?”

“I think it’s best we don’t discuss this in too much detail,” Jon interrupts, “I have experienced panic attacks before. So have you. That doesn’t make each… recurrence any easier. Can we leave it at that?”

“Yeah.” Martin seems to shrink. “Yeah, alright.”

Jon opens his bottom drawer. He forgets why, until he notices the green first aid kit inside. He pulls it out and slides it across the desk towards Martin. “There should be some antiseptic wipes inside. It was re-stocked recently.”

“Oh, I—thank you, but—but _why_?”

Jon leans back in his chair. He doesn’t know how to say this delicately. “Your arms, Martin.”

Martin twists so he can see the soft underside of his forearms, scratched raw and pink and red by his own nails. His eyes widen. “Oh, god, I—I didn’t realise. _God_ , Jon, I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising,” Jon says, although it comes out softer than he expects. He isn’t sure whether to count this as a victory or a failure.

“I used to—I scratched myself in my sleep all the time when I was little. Still have a few scars. It was—I had really bad eczema. Mum used to… she hated it.” Martin’s eyes grow distant again for a moment. “I think there were worms. On me. In the dream.”

Jon opens the first aid kit, because Martin seems to be caught up in an old memory. He locates the antiseptic wipes easily, wrapped up in sealed blue packages, and places them directly and deliberately in front of Martin.

“Oh.” Martin seems to shake himself. “Thank you, Jon.”

Martin tears open the packet and unfurls the antiseptic wipe. He bends his arm, placing his hand on his shoulder and turning his forearm outwards so he can dab the small cuts. He hisses when the wipe makes contact with his tender skin.

“That stings,” Martin admits with a tiny laugh. Jon doesn’t know how he manages to be self-depreciating even about being in pain.

“Can I get you anything else?” Jon asks.

“I’m fine. Really.”

“ _Martin_.”

“Um, water. Some water would be great. Thank you.”

“I’ll be right back.”

When Jon returns with a glass of water from the break room, Martin appears to have cleaned both his arms and his chin, a pile of drying antiseptic wipes sitting next to their ripped packets on the desk. He’s dabbing some cream on his chin, seemingly guided by where it stings rather than precision, because he’s marking his successes through a series of flinches. There’s no mirror in the office.

Jon places the water down next to the medical debris, then watches as Martin reaches for the glass with the hand not covered haphazardly in balm. His hand is still shaking, sending ripples across the surface of the water as he tries to drink without spilling any.

The glass is going to leave a rim of escaped water on Jon’s desk. And usually, he’d complain about the stain. His first tactic to try and stop Martin from bringing him cups of tea was to be absurdly fastidious about not staining the desk, even though Gertrude appears to have done her fair share of damage to it. But Jon says nothing when Martin places the dewy glass back down.

“Here,” Jon says, his mouth moving without his permission. He picks up the tube of Boots own-brand cream for, according to its by-line, ‘soothing and healing’. He turns it over, perusing the list of active ingredients to distract from what he is about to do. “Lift your chin.”

Martin freezes, staring up at Jon. This half-fulfils Jon’s command, because with Martin twisted in his chair and his eyes raised to where Jon is standing next to him, the scratches on his chin are exposed. But not enough. Martin still looks dazed, which prompts Jon to touch the soft dip of his chin with his free left hand, lifting Martin’s head into position with the knuckle of his forefinger.

“Jon, you really don’t have to—”

“Would you like me to stop?”

“No,” Martin whispers.

“Then keep still.” Jon removes his hand from where he’s holding Martin’s chin, squeezing a blob of the balm onto his finger. He dabs it against the scratches on Martin’s chin, this time with razor precision, so that each one is covered with a thin, perfectly symmetrical layer.

When Jon is satisfied with his work, he rounds the desk again, taking a tissue from the box Sasha bought for him after the Naomi Hearne incident. For crying statement-givers, apparently. If Elias ever let him take statements in person again. He wipes the balm from his hands and places it in the rubbish bin, thankfully now redundant as a sick bucket, he hopes.

Martin stares at his hands, clenched and trembling in his lap. “Thank you.”

Jon unlocks his computer again. There’s a bulletin from Rosie, a query from artefact storage and no email from Elias, which is a disappointment even though he wasn’t expecting one, hasn’t even sent him an email recently that would warrant a reply. With a glance at Martin, who looks pale and drained and _cold_ , Jon opens a new email and begins writing, quickly getting into the flow of his—well, he can’t call it much more than an overly polite plea for more security, pathetic as that sounds.

“I’m sorry.” Martin seems to be saying this to his hands. “I should—I’ll leave you to your work. I’m sorry for interrupting.”

“You can stay,” Jon says, staring at the blinking cursor in the middle of the sentence he can’t remember how he intended to end, “If you would like.”

“It, um—it takes a while. To come down from these things. Not sure I’ll be able to get back to sleep in… you know.”

Jon keeps looking at his screen. “Then stay.”

It takes Jon at least ten minutes to get back into writing the email. He re-writes the same sentences at least fourteen times, and then re-arranges the order of his proposals for Elias until he’s satisfied that they all sound logical and reasonable. The least arduous request at the top, the most complicated proposal at the bottom of the numbered list. He lets his mouse hover over the send button, trying not the imagine how he will feel if Elias rejects his request.

He looks over at Martin again. He’s not sure why—for courage? For encouragement? To his surprise, Martin is curled around himself in the chair, shrimp-like, with one hand clinging to the back and his head resting on his knuckles. His other arm is draped across his middle, his hand dangling by his hip and his fingers twitching every so often. He’s asleep. His features are slightly pinched and still far too pale, but at least he looks more peaceful than before. He’s still shaking, though.

Jon stands. Without allowing himself to think about what he’s doing, Jon slides his thick winter coat from the back of his own chair and tiptoes around his desk. He stands still as death for a moment. He tells himself not to think about what he will do if Martin wakes up. Instead, he very gently drapes his coat across Martin’s coiled figure, tucking it around his shoulders and beneath his chin. Martin barely stirs, snuffling and rubbing his cheek against the back of his hand, but otherwise making no indication that Jon has disturbed his rest. Jon steps away with a small exhale of relief.

Feeling an odd, warm sense of satisfaction, Jon returns to his chair and sends the email to Elias without allowing himself to read it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god why am i like this??? i spent the entire time writing this chapter thinking "there's not going to be another chapter" and then i got to the end and was immediately like "yep there's gonna be another chapter". i hope that's okay with everyone and i'm very sorry for dragging this out!!! originally this chapter was 13k but i like where it ends here and i think we should have Martin play us out so to speak, although i know better than to promise the next chapter will definitely 100% no nonsense be the last one 😂
> 
> thank you everyone for reading, and for your patience as i publicly process the realisation that being a pantser when it comes to writing is both very fun and very frustrating 💖 i hope everyone has a great day!!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for: worms, swearing, disassociation, anxiety, panic attacks (mostly referenced), embarrassment/second-hand embarrassment, economic and food insecurity, implied/referenced child abuse, self-depreciating thoughts, toxic work environments, body dysmorphia, nausea, dermatillomania, food (including specific discussions about opinions towards food), housing insecurity, alcohol mention, arachnophobia, touch aversion, transgression of boundaries related to touch, guilt, employment insecurity and anxiety, intrusive thoughts, medication, medical anxiety.

Martin’s dreams are grey.

He thinks he must be the minority, but he’s always liked the colour—the way it refuses to choose between black and white, how he could often find it in the sky and feel comforted. The grey mutes the silver flash of the worms in his dreams until they seem blunted and two-dimensional. It fizzes like static, at times, although there’s a gentleness to that as well. A familiarity. Sometimes, he is in his own state of grey, halfway between wakefulness and sleep, and he doesn’t mind it, this in-between where he feels comfortingly distant from a world in which it nearly always hurts to be present.

Rosie shouts a farewell down the stairs into the Archives, as she always does when leaving at night, and Martin just catches the sound of Jon shifting in his seat in shock before drifting away again. Every now and again, the sound of Jon furiously clicking his mouse or muttering under his breath breaks through the fog, and Martin would smile, he thinks, if he was properly inside of his body.

Refreshing his emails. Jon always clicked his mouse like that when he was refreshing his emails. Martin had learned this while studying Jon’s moods to an almost obsessive degree. The degree of detail, perhaps, Jon would like Martin to give to his work. But Martin liked— _needed_ —to be prepared for what Jon might throw his way. And Jon was almost always unsettled and liable to snap if he was sitting in his office and refreshing his emails with a vengeance.

In his office.

It hits Martin, then. He’s _in Jon’s office._ He’s _asleep in Jon’s office_.

Except he’s not quite asleep anymore. His limbs ache, his muscles sore from the panic attack and the angle he had managed to contort himself into in the chair. And exhaustion sits heavy across his shoulders, inside of his head, threatening to swallow him whole again. 

_No_. No, he can’t stay here. Jon hates distractions inside of his office, hardly tolerates anyone being in his space for more than ten minutes, and Martin is taking up room he might need for statements or stationery or—shit. He’s wearing a coat like a blanket. Did he do that? Did he curl up in Jon’s chair and pull his coat around himself and fall asleep before Jon could protest?

This coat, however, is unfamiliar. Martin’s coat has a fur-lined hood, the cheap, fake stuff that always tickles his nose when he tries to use it as a blanket, on the nights where he can’t afford to top up his metre. It’s not even particularly warm anymore, after he’d being caught in the rain one too many times and ruined the down inside, but replacing it felt like too much of an indulgence. His mother would comment on it, if she saw him with a new coat, and he wasn’t sure he could cope with that.

This coat, he realises, smells of Jon. It feels thin but heavy, and Martin can feel the thick woollen collar against his cheek, a faint touch like fingertips. He remembers the first time he saw Jon in this coat. Remembers the resentment, burning and too quick to push down, that someone could afford a coat like this, which would last so long. He remembers, too, the way he came to appreciate this coat—the way the grey, chequered fabric curled around Jon’s thin shoulders, how it sat perfectly against Jon’s legs even as he paced frantically around the office and doled out criticisms.

Martin did not belong anywhere near this coat. This was not the sort of coat he was allowed wear, not the sort of coat he could afford to replace if he ruined it somehow with his clumsiness. He needed to—

A clattering noise, like a door meeting a wall, and the same creak of Jon jolting in his chair. Then Sasha’s voice, cutting through Martin’s spiral: “Oh, god, Jon, have you—?”

“Shh,” Jon hisses, cutting her off. Martin doesn’t know how, but he _feels_ Jon’s gaze on him for just a moment, piercing through the fog that still sits inside of him.

“Oh, my god,” Sasha says, this time in a whisper, “Thank god.”

“What exactly is going on?” Jon asks. Martin is surprised at how firm Jon’s voice can sound, even this hushed.

Sasha takes a deep, shuddering breath and laughs slightly frantically. “Tim and I just got back. We were going to check in on Martin and he wasn’t in his room and it was a mess. Blankets everywhere, stuff on the floor, and—and he’s here. He’s with you. He’s okay.”

“As you can see.”

“He looks a little pale,” Sasha comments.

Jon’s chair creaks again. Martin supresses a flinch. He knows that movement, that slight but stinging expression of annoyance. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Well, actually, if Martin’s in here, me and Tim can—oh, god, Tim!”

“Sasha,” Jon says again, “Would you please attempt to keep your voice down?”

“ _Sorry_. Sorry. It’s just that Tim and I split up, and he’s probably still looking for Martin.” Martin can hear her backing towards the door. “I’ll be right back. I just need to tell Tim to call off the search.”

There’s no sound of the door this time, which leads Martin to believe the initial smash _was_ the door meeting the wall. Jon will probably inspect the plaster later for marks. For now, though, he sighs and returns to his computer. Martin shivers involuntarily, the urge hitting him before he can supress it, and he doesn’t think—or perhaps he does—before he buries himself further inside Jon’s coat. The collar sits against Martin’s nose now, covering his mouth, and he can smell even more of Jon. He uses a floral scented detergent, Martin thinks. And a deeper, woodsmoke-like deodorant.

He doesn’t have time to think of an escape from this deeply humiliating scenario before he hears Sasha and Tim come tumbling through the door.

“Jesus, Jon, you could have told us,” Tim whispers the moment he’s inside. Tim’s version of a whisper is still uncomfortably close to shouting.

“Will you keep it down?” Jon snaps. “And how on earth did you expect me to anticipate your return? I’m not responsible for your comings and goings from the—”

“It’s fine,” Sasha interrupts placatingly, “This actually works pretty well, right, Tim?”

Tim is breathing heavily, as if he’s been running a marathon. “Yeah, but you scared the life out of me.”

“Okay, so we got everything on your food shopping list—”

“Plus a few extras,” Tim interjects.

“Go on,” Jon says disapprovingly, and oh, _god_ , they’ve done this for Martin. They’ve gone out of their way for him already, and there’s _more_ , even Jon is expecting there to be more. A sense of panic begins rising inside of him, sitting against his sternum.

“We have work clothes, pyjamas, jumpers, socks, jogging bottoms and t-shirts in various sizes for Martin to try,” Sasha continues.

Martin is glad the coat is hiding most of his face. They’ve bought him clothes. Will he have to try them on in front of the others, to prove that he’s grateful, that he will wear them? He doesn’t have much of a choice, he can’t go back to his flat for his own clothes. But it had taken him years to find a small collection of clothes he could wear in rotation without feeling uncomfortable every time he looked in the mirror. And if, somehow, the clothes that Tim and Sasha had bought him were the right size, the right style, that would still mean that they had observed him all of those times Martin had told himself no one cared, no one was looking, just to be able to go about his day.

He feels sick. He desperately doesn’t want to have another panic attack in Jon’s office. He wonders if he can hold on, until Jon gets up to get a drink or use the toilet, and then he can sneak away. Fold the coat over the back of the chair perfectly, so it seemed no one else had ever touched it but Jon. Curled himself away inside document storage so that no one disturbed him or asked about the afternoon.

The conversation continues around him. It’s unfair just how excited Tim sounds: “And we went to TK Maxx and bought _so much stuff_.”

“Do I want to know what?” Jon asks.

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask how much it was first,” Tim says, followed by a grunt. Sasha had probably elbowed him. 

“ _Should_ I have asked that first?”

“We have fluffy blankets, pillows, fairy lights, a beanbag, a mirror, some storage boxes, an alarm clock shaped like a frog _and_ some photos we can hang on the wall to imitate windows,” Sasha lists, “We had to order one of those eight-people taxis to get it all back here.”

“We’re going to renovate the storage room,” Tim adds excitedly.

“So can you keep Martin here until we’re done?” Sasha asks. “We want it to be a nice surprise.”

“Well, he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere,” Jon replies humourlessly.

“Great. Thank you _so_ much.”

“We’ll be ten minutes.”

“Twenty,” Sasha adds, “Actually, probably closer to thirty.”

“Take your time,” Jon tells them, “Although if you want to leave before eight o’clock, you’ll need to—”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Tim interjects.

“No way,” Sasha agrees, “I don’t think any of us would want to be alone after what Martin went through. We’re staying. For as long as we’re needed.”

Martin wants to cry. He wants to go back to sleep. He wants to claw at his own skin, which feels too small and too much and itches with embarrassment. He is embarrassed for himself. Embarrassed that he needs their help, that they have done so much for him, taken all of this time already and seem prepared to offer more. He should drop the facade of sleep and tell them this is all unnecessary.

But he can’t face them now. The thought makes his stomach turn in a way that threatens another panic attack. 

“Well, you’ll be pleased to know I have already filled out and submitted your overtime forms.” Jon’s voice interrupts Martin’s spiralling thoughts.

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s only fair,” Jon replies, “Now, I believe you have a room to decorate. And if you don’t mind, I’m rather busy with emails.”

Tim and Sasha say their goodbyes. Martin tries to distract himself by imagining the lazy salute Tim sometimes gives Jon, just to wind him up, the cheerful smile that accompanies his teasing, “see ya, boss”. Sasha will grin, too, as always. She thanks Jon before she leaves. And then the office is a little emptier—and certainly quieter—again.

Jon sighs, shifting in his chair towards his computer. Martin debates just getting up now, forcing his way through the horror of this moment so that he can stop Tim and Sasha from giving up any more of their time for him. They could take all of the items back before the shop closed, get refunds, and not have to waste another moment on a situation Martin got himself into. Because he went looking for Carlos Vittery. He did it for Jon, but he also did it for himself. He had always known he was stubborn and petty. He had always known it would get him into trouble one day.

“I know you’re awake, Martin.”

Martin freezes. He could keep up the pretence, try to convince Jon he was wrong. But he knows Jon is just as stubborn as him. 

Slowly, Martin extricates himself from the coat with a false yawn that quickly becomes a real yawn. He doesn’t want Jon to know how long he’s been awake for, but there is something in Jon’s knowing glare that disabuses Martin of the notion he could ever pretend.

“I didn’t want them to feel bad,” Martin murmurs. His voice is still thick from sleep, and it’s a pitiful excuse. He needs to say something else before that disapproving frown Jon is giving him deepens.

“What is it this time?” Jon interrupts. God, he sounds miserable. Unimpressed. As if Martin could never give him the right answer.

“The surprise,” Martin blurts, “But I really wasn’t expecting—they didn’t have to—”

He feels his breath catch in his throat. The panic isn’t closer or further than it was before, it’s just _there_. Heavy, like a cloud threatening rain. It feels like a bruise that refuses to settle. When he breathes again, he can feel his body tremble with it, all the way down to his bottom lip. His mother used to hate it when that happened. She said he was putting it on to make her feel bad. That he’d been watching TV just to learn how to torment her.

“Martin,” Jon says, “Breathe.”

“I am—”

“Martin.” Jon’s voice is level, calm. There is no disappointment in it, no approval. It’s neutral. _Grey_ , Martin thinks. “Take a moment. There is nothing you have to do or say. Right now, you can simply breathe.”

Martin lets the words wash over him. They feel like the tide around your toes when you know it’s coming, when you aren’t trying to run from it—a cold, refreshing comfort. A familiar shock, almost a reset. It’s still hard to breathe. But he has an anchor of sorts, and he lets it ground him through each swell and trough until the panic is a background noise. He knows it will come back later. It always does, once it’s established itself inside his chest. But, at least, he hopes he will be alone by that point. He thinks this moment of calm might carry him over until then.

“Martin,” Jon says eventually, “Besides the fact that they clearly want to do this, Sasha and Tim have spent the afternoon perusing various shops instead of doing any work. Do you think they would rather be sorting statements?”

“No,” Martin mumbles.

“Exactly.”

“Right.” Martin clears his throat. “Um, I’m—about earlier.”

He needs to say something. To apologise, to downplay. _It doesn’t happen that often. It isn’t that bad._ He doesn’t want Jon to worry, although that seems unlikely. More than anything, he doesn’t want Jon to remember. To look at Martin and recall always the way he had panicked, to be always at a point in their past and unable to move beyond it. 

Jon turns his gaze to the computer. “We don’t have to discuss it.”

Martin sighs. It’s a quiet, mournful sound. Like a disconnected phone or an unmoored boat. “Okay.”

He’s stuck, he realises. He has nowhere else to go. For now, even his momentary shelter is off-limits. And for all that he wants to go over there and tell Tim and Sasha to stop, Jon is right. He heard the excitement in their voices when they were in Jon’s office. Martin can accept it, he thinks, at least for now when he doesn’t yet have any idea of how to pay them back with something _more_ , if he believes Sasha and Tim also did it for themselves. It’s easier to think they wanted to shirk work rather than that they felt they owed Martin something.

A slightly frantic laugh bubbles out of Martin. It’s enough to draw Jon’s eyes away from the computer.

“What?” Jon snaps.

“I guess I’m trapped here,” Martin offers.

Jon doesn’t seem to understand why this is funny. “Will that be a problem?”

“No. No.” Martin tries to smile, to reassure Jon that Martin isn’t laughing at _him_. “It’s a lot nicer than being trapped in my flat by you know who.”

“How complimentary,” Jon drawls.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that your office isn’t—”

“I know what you meant,” Jon says, “What is your preferred cuisine?”

The conversational whiplash is enough that Martin doesn’t have time to be swallowed by the guilt of offending Jon. He stares. “What?”

“If given the choice, what would you order from a takeaway?” Jon says more slowly.

“Oh. _Oh_.” Martin hesitates. Sometimes, when Jon stays late, he orders takeaway. And sometimes he shares it with Tim. Or Sasha, if it’s vegetarian. But never Martin. This has never happened before. He wrings his hands. “Uh, well, I—I like anything, really. I’m not fussy. You chose.”

Jon fixes him with a firm look. “I am giving you the choice, Martin. If that’s not too difficult.”

Martin flinches. He thought he was doing the right thing, offering the choice to Jon. Isn’t that the right thing? He must have read the situation wrong. And if he’s read _this_ situation wrong, how many times has he done the same in the past with someone less honest than Jon?

Jon clears his throat. “I simply meant—”

“No, no, it’s fine. I know what you meant.” Martin offers him a shaky smile. It’s a lie, all of it. He didn’t know what Jon meant, not really. He’s still not sure where he went wrong. “It’s really kind of you. To offer.”

“It’s the least I can do, Martin.”

Maybe he should just… answer the question. It’s not a hard question. Martin has answered harder questions, often from Jon. But something about this feels deeply personal, like the wrong choice would be easy to make. Or that whatever choice he made would reveal something else about him that Jon would hate or use against him.

“Well, um, I kept thinking about pizza,” Martin begins. He can reason his way through his, he tells himself. “When I was stuck in my flat. Usually I’d go for something more interesting if I was getting takeaway, but—”

“Pizza,” Jon echoes, turning towards the computer and typing quickly, “Let’s see…”

“Because of the power cut,” Martin continues. He has a justification for this. He can explain. “And so my freezer wasn’t working and I had this pizza in there that I was _really_ looking forward to. It was on offer, actually. A week or so before, and I was saving it for… yeah. But then the power went off.”

“I believe Sasha and Tim like this restaurant,” Jon says, turning the monitor to face Martin.

Martin leans forward, but the motion causes Jon’s coat to slide down and over his legs. Without thinking, Martin catches it. He can’t let it touch the floor and risk ruining it. He looks up. Jon is looking at him, too. And for a moment, they are both trapped there, staring at one another without speaking. They don’t acknowledge that they both know Martin is holding Jon’s coat. That Jon must have put the coat over Martin while he was asleep. But they both _know_.

Jon clears his throat and turns away. “This is where Tim ordered the pizzas when we had that insufferable inter-department social.”

Jon shudders. Martin feels his own face mirror Jon’s horror, although his repulsion at the memory is slowly eclipsed by shock that Jon felt the same. He thinks he remembers Jon being surprisingly pleasant during the social, although it had mostly been for Elias’s sake. Jon and Elias had spent most of the evening talking, drinking an expensive red wine Elias had bought, while Martin lingered on the periphery of everyone else’s conversations.

“They were nice, I think,” Martin says about the pizzas. He doesn’t want to risk saying anything else about that night.

“You think?”

Martin flinches again. He shouldn’t have said that. “I, um—I don’t think I ate much. At the social. Too nervous.”

“Oh.”

“I used to work in the library,” Martin rushes to add, feeling an almost compulsive need to justify himself again, “And everyone was great there, they were, but I think they—they were a little surprised when I got transferred down here. I mean, weren’t we all?” A nervous laugh. “So yeah, I was trying to keep a bit of a low profile. During the social.”

“Well, personally, I thought the pizza was sub-par,” Jon announces.

Martin stares at him in shock. For a moment, he can hardly process it—how prim and serious Jon sounds when talking about _pizza_. It startles a genuine laugh out of Martin. “Oh, that’s—I guess I didn’t miss out, then.”

“Not in the slightest. The crust was decidedly tasteless.”

Martin is still laughing.

Jon shudders again. “Like cardboard.”

“Really?” Martin squeaks, still surprised but nearly giggling now.

“Yes,” Jon insists, “I never lie about pizza.”

Martin snorts. It’s embarrassing, until Jon smiles—a small, reluctant smile—and the burning feeling inside of Martin shifts into something less familiar.

What sort of pizza do you prefer?” Jon asks.

“Thick crust,” Martin replies quickly, trying to get the words out before his embarrassment catches up with him, “And the greasier and cheesier the better.”

Somehow, Jon is still smiling. “Sounds good to me.”

“Oh. That’s…” Martin smiles, too. “Great.”

Martin and Jon find a restaurant that fits the bill and delivers to Chelsea, with a wait time of just under an hour. Jon turns his computer back towards him and returns to angrily refreshing his emails. Seizing the distraction, Martin stands, clinging to the coat. He drapes if over the back of the chair, smoothing it as gently as he can into place so that there is no trace left that he borrowed it, no reason for Jon to regret his generosity.

His whole body aches. He tries to move around the room slowly, not pacing but close, and stretches out his legs.

“How do you feel?” Jon asks.

“Better,” Martin replies. At Jon’s disbelieving expression, he adds: “No, really, I am.”

“Let me know if anything changes,” Jon tells him, “I can always call an early end to Tim and Sasha’s renovation.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. Wouldn’t want to ruin their fun.”

“Your rest is more important than their fun, Martin.”

Martin stops. Looks at him. Looks away when the earnestness in Jon’s gaze becomes too much. “Thanks, Jon. But I’m fine. Really.”

Jon doesn’t look like he believes him. He watches, without much subtlety, from behind his computer while Martin walks and pretends he isn’t being observed.

“Martin,” Jon blurts, “I don’t have a sofa.”

Martin stops. He’s lost count of how many times Jon has surprised him since he woke up. It hasn’t even been that long. “What?”

“I don’t have a sofa,” Jon adds, “In case you were wondering why I didn’t offer it to you earlier. In the conference room.”

“Oh. Oh, right.” Martin feels like the ground might shift beneath him, like his legs might just give out. This is the strangest conversation he’s ever had with Jon, and he doesn’t know how to untangle how he feels about it. “I, uh, I wasn’t… wasn’t offended or anything.”

“Alright.”

“Jon,” Martin ventures before he can stop himself, “Where do you watch TV?”

“Oh.” Jon moves away from his computer, lifting his hands from the keyboard. “I don’t have a TV either.”

“You don’t have a TV?”

“No.”

“Don’t you ever… I don’t know, watch documentaries or something?”

“Why documentaries?”

Martin shrugs. He can feel himself blushing. “Just seems like something you’d be interested in.”

“Well, sometimes I watch them on my laptop,” Jon replies, “But when I do have spare time—which is rare—I tend to read.”

“Just not on your sofa,” Martin jokes weakly.

Jon frowns. “Yes. Obviously, not on my sofa. Since I don’t have one.”

“Yeah.” Martin swallows. Not funny, then. Not by Jon’s standards anyway. “Yep. No sofa.”

“Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” Jon mutters.

Martin sits down again. He crosses and uncrosses his ankles, uncomfortable with silence but completely at a loss with how to fill it. “Is there something I can help you with? A statement maybe? Or—”

“We might be at work, but these aren’t work hours.”

“You’re working,” Martin counters.

Jon sighs. “That’s true, I suppose.”

“I’d feel better if I wasn’t just… sitting here.”

“Fine,” Jon assents, “But you’ll stop if you need to?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to do any research on Jane Prentiss?” Jon asks cautiously.

“No,” Martin replies, “I think it’s, uh, a bit too soon.”

“That’s understandable.” Jon begins sorting through the disorganised statements, waiting to be recorded, sitting on the corner of his desk. “Has your ordeal changed your opinion on spiders?”

“No, actually, I still think they’re pretty cool. Especially the—”

“That’s quite enough,” Jon interrupts. He withdraws a statement from the pile and offers it to Martin.

Martin takes the statement. He holds it in both hands, aware that he’s still shaky and dizzy. He doesn’t want to drop a statement, not today, when he knows that is just the sort of thing that will send him back over the edge into panic. To distract himself, he looks down at the file, which has a pink Post-it stuck to the top with a single word in Tim’s handwriting: _SPIDERS!!!!!_ It’s underlined multiple times.

“I would appreciate it if you had a look over this statement,” Jon continues, “The majority of it recorded without issue on my laptop, but there is a paragraph that was lost to static and I had to dispose of the audio file because of it.”

“Would you like me to re-record it?” Martin asks.

“No,” Jon says quickly, “I would like you to comb it for details and decide whether it warrants another attempt at recording.”

“Okay.” Martin smiles at the Post-it. “I take it it’s about spiders?”

“Yes,” Jon replies in a way that clearly invites no further jokes about the matter.

Martin begins leafing through the statement. Jon returns to his computer. For some time, they work side-by-side in silence, and it’s pleasant. Martin will examine this later and still not know how to name it in a way that honours the truth of the moment.

* * *

“Right. Almost there. I’m just going to cover your eyes and—”

Martin is startled out of his thoughts by Tim’s exuberant entreaty. It takes time understand what it is that Tim is saying to him, too much time to anticipate what’s coming next, and the appearance of Tim’s hands near his face makes his shoulders shoot up until they’re almost touching his ears.

He doesn’t want to offend Tim by flinching. He isn’t going to say anything. It’s a residual reaction for the panic attack, from the panic still sitting in his chest, nothing more. And hasn’t he always wanted this—uncomplicated, comforting touches between friends? An ease of contact to replace the sudden, sparse and sometimes violent ways his mother used to touch him. He should accept this for what it is. He shouldn’t need to be eased into the intimacy of friendship.

“Tim,” Jon interrupts, in the most cutting voice from his arsenal, the one that does not allow arguments. Martin feels his spine begin to relax in relief. “This need not be any more dramatic than it already is. Besides the health and safety implications of leading another employee blind through the Archives, this is turning into a—”

“Alright, alright.” Tim rolls his eyes “Kill joy.”

Martin looks at Jon. Jon stares back, for just a moment, and Martin wonders what he sees. The intense gratitude flowering inside of him or perhaps just nervousness, an ever-present lack of certainty. Because Jon will surely sever any perceived connection between them before Martin could ignite it with anything close to hope.

Jon looks away first. He seems not to want Martin to acknowledge what he did, let alone why.

“Okay, so we tried to make it as cosy in here as possible,” Sasha says, “And we’re aware the air mattress is a bit of an issue since, you know, it’s like fifty years old and—”

“Sash,” Tim whispers.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, we’ll sort the air mattress. But we hope this will make you feel more at home in the meantime.”

Tim grins. “Drum roll please.”

“Just open the door, Tim,” Jon snaps.

Tim rolls his eyes again, even more dramatically than the first time, but he does swing the door open without further dallying. In tandem, Tim and Sasha step aside so they’re standing on either side of the open door, presenting the redecorated room with a flourish of their hands and shinning smiles.

Martin glances at Sasha, then Tim, and then over his shoulder at Jon. He is trying unnecessarily hard not to look at the room itself and what they have done with it. Because all he can think is, _too much, this is too much._ He doesn’t deserve _this_.

“Go on in,” Tim prompts gently.

Martin takes a hesitant step inside the room. Tim nods his head for Jon to follow, and he paces inside after Martin, hands stuffed in his pockets. Jon seems nervous, on-edge, as if this is the sum of all of his hard work. As if he created this space. As if the steadiness of his orbit depends on Martin’s response to the room.

How does he react to this? Martin stands in the middle of the transformed room, feeling foolish and small and unworthy. The detested air mattress is now covered properly in a fitted sheet, a duvet decorated with hot air balloons and two fluffy grey blankets. A cloth tapestry hangs on the wall behind the bed, decorated with the phases of the moon and framed in soft fairy lights—a repeated motif in various corners of the room, creating a warm, diffusive light. There’s a curved lamp on the antique metal stool that certainly looks like a sturdier bedside table than the previous cardboard box, alongside a radio alarm, softly playing a late-night book club. The Institute storage boxes have been replaced with hardier versions made of white metal; Sasha appears to have put her label maker to good use, as usual, because each box is marked according to what it contains. Work clothes, not work clothes, pyjamas, pants and socks, toiletries, spare blankets. On the walls, they’ve mounted photos of rolling, rural landscapes. Scotland, Martin guesses. There are even candles positioned around the room, giving the faint smell of violets and clean linen. They’re unlit, and Jon will probably insist they stay that way.

“Wow,” Martin eventually manages to say, in barely more than a whisper. He can hear the tears in his voice, and that’s how he identifies the burning in his eyes as something more than exhaustion. He doesn’t want to cry again, not yet, not here. He clears his throat, looking between Tim and Sasha, who have joined them inside the cramped room. “I can’t believe you guys—this is amazing. _Thank you_.”

“You like it?” Sasha asks, smiling tentatively.

“I love it. It’s—god, I—I don’t even know what to say,” Martin stammers, “Thank you.”

“You already said that,” Jon mutters. He’s standing in the corner of the room, next to a sprouting plant. He seems to be attempting to determine whether it’s real. 

“You know what, Sasha,” Tim says, grinning, “I think if this whole Archival Assistant thing doesn’t work out, we’ve got a shinning career ahead of us in interior design.”

Sasha laughs. “I think you’re on to something there.”

“Stoker & James. Interior Design Specialists.” Tim turns towards Jon, his smile staying in place even as it meets the resistance of Jon’s harsh scowl. “What do you think, boss?”

“I think you ought not to tell Elias you’ve spent our monthly budget turning a workspace into—”

“Boo.” Tim sticks his tongue out for a moment. “Elias doesn’t need to know.”

Martin is snapped back into the moment by Tim’s statement. It sounds like a joke. But it’s not, is it? It’s not a joke to use company funds without authorisation. Perhaps Elias would overlook Martin’s involvement, but in his most insecure moments, he is _sure_ Elias had seen through his CV and simply hired him as a cruel joke. This could be the incident that finally made him look closer at Martin’s credentials.

A hot, sharp anger grips Martin around the throat. It burns, like the tears already there. He’s angry at Tim. Tim, who knows about the falsified CV. Tim, who always seems so free at work, as if he has absolutely nothing to hide or to lose.

In a moment, the fury vanishes, replaced by a disproportionate guilt that makes him want to disappear. It twists and rolls in his gut, making him feel suddenly weighed down. Tim doesn’t deserve Martin’s ire. Tim had given up his day to take care of Martin, had done all of this for him, and Martin is standing just next to him while thinking terrible, unfounded things. It’s a poisonous intrusion, warping first his image of Tim and then his image of himself. But there’s enough strength behind it for him to know now, more than ever, that he has never deserved what Sasha and Tim and even Jon have done for him today.

“Elias…” Martin swallows. His voice sounds flat to his own ears. “Elias doesn’t know about this?”

“It’s not so much that he doesn’t know,” Sasha says, drawing out the words, “And just that we’ve… neglected to tell him.”

“Oh, god, I’m—I don’t want you to get into trouble for this.” Martin’s clenches his hands around his pyjama bottoms. In part because he doesn’t want to scrape himself again, but also because he’s half-forgotten he’s still wearing them and almost expects to find his wallet tucked into his pocket. “I should—I can pay. For all of this. I’ll just—I might need to—or you can take it out of my wages.”

“Martin,” Jon interrupts, “This is not coming out of your wages. If Elias has an issue with any of this, he can take it up with me.”

Martin stares at him. “But—but you just said—”

“It was—” For an unexpected moment, Jon flounders, as if he can’t bring himself to finish the sentence: _a joke_. He clears his throat. “If you are going to live in the Archives, you might as well be comfortable. I wouldn’t want your work to suffer further because of it.”

“Oh, right. Yeah.” Of course. Of course Jon is still worried about his work ethic. Martin tries to smile, although it falters until he turns back to Tim and Sasha. “Thank you again, guys. This is—”

“It’s the least we can do, Martin,” Sasha says.

Tim nods in agreement. “It truly is, mate.”

Martin feels the tears returning. It would almost be a release after the anger, but he doesn’t want Tim and Sasha to think he’s not grateful. Because he _is._ Once the guilt fades, he knows he will be. He turns away slightly, using the excuse of looking at the little cactus sitting on the bedside table, to which Sasha has also taken the label maker: _Sir Spikealot._

“The pizza has arrived,” Jon announces, holding his phone. He seems uncomfortable, as if he can sense Martin’s own unease. “Do _not_ light any candles in my absence.”

After Jon leaves, Sasha turns towards the little cactus too. “We were going to name this one Jon, because it’s prickly, but Tim felt bad.”

“Did not,” Tim replies, “I just came up with an even better name.”

“Right,” Sasha says, unconvinced.

“I meant what I—that you really didn’t have to do—” Martin tries to say. But he doesn’t have the words for how he really feels, all of it balled so tightly in his chest that he cannot separate out just one emotion. He thinks if he were to tease the string of gratitude out fully, he would unravel with it too much guilt, too much resentment, too much worry. It would overwhelm him again. Jon would come back to find him having another panic attack.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Sasha murmurs, moving closer to Martin but not touching him as she guides him towards the air mattress.

Martin sits, his back against the wall and his legs sinking into the air mattress. The new covers do nothing to disguise its hollow feel and barely-there support. Sasha lowers herself into the space next to Martin while Tim collapses onto one of the beanbags, which sighs upon impact.

It’s oddly reminiscent of earlier in the day—had it really only been a day?—before he had fallen asleep the first time. He rubs at his eyes, digging his fingers in until it hurts. “I don’t want to cry again.”

“It’s okay if you do,” Sasha says quietly, “Cry, that is. You’ve been through a lot.”

“But I—” Martin chokes on the words again.

“Hey, hey.” Tim leans forward on the beanbag, his face so open and earnest that Martin can no longer look away. “Not being able to return to your flat because of—I don’t know, a flood or something is traumatic enough. You survived a _siege_ by a woman infected with creepy parasitic worms. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t read anything about that in my contract when I transferred down to the Archives. And even if it was part of the job description, it’s still pretty messed up. You’ve been out of that situation for barely a _day_. No one’s going to blame you for crying, I promise.”

“I don’t want to cry,” Martin mutters. He clenches his teeth, furious still with the emotions that just won’t settle inside of him.

“Then we can talk about something else?” Sasha offers. “And if you do need to cry, we won’t mention it unless you do?”

Martin rubs at his eyes again, nodding. “Okay.”

“I phoned a whole bunch of taxi companies today. And it was pretty fun,” Tim hastens to add at Martin’s guilty cringe, “Maybe they were having a slow day today, I don’t know, do taxi companies have slow days in central London? But anyway, they were all pretty talkative. A few of them had some proper spooky stories, although I did warn them that the person who’d been taking their statement here wouldn’t be as devastatingly friendly as me.”

Sasha rolls her eyes. Martin huffs a small, wet laugh.

“One guy just wanted to talk about his new dog. He had the most brilliant Cockney accent and the dog was this little teacup chihuahua who his daughter had named after the chicken from _Moana_ ,” Tim explained, “Oh, and I also spoke to a receptionist on her first day and she was straight up not having a good time. The coffee machine exploded when she tried to load it, the email system they used was completely different from what she was expecting, and her ex-girlfriend is one of the drivers. Chaos all around.”

“Did you have to talk her down from quitting?” Sasha asks.

“Surprisingly not. This is one of the better jobs she’s had apparently. She’s trying to make it on the West End and she had some _stories_ to tell about her day jobs, I’ll tell you that for free. She did give me a preview from the chorus of _Waitress_. Voice of an angel. Hopefully she won’t be stuck at that taxi place for long.”

“Sounds like you met some real characters,” Sasha says with a smile, “I was mostly shopping with my headphones in until you showed up, so I can’t say I had any conversations worth sharing.”

Tim leans forward in the beanbag, offering his palm to Sasha. “Overstimulation crew high-five.”

Sasha high-fives him. Martin manages a smile despite himself. The guilt tries to rear its head again—that Sasha had to be in a situation Martin knows she finds difficult, sometimes too difficult even with headphones in to manage—but Tim taps him on the knee, making sure Martin sees his hand before there’s any full contact between them. And Martin is so surprised by the gentleness of the touch, the way it doesn’t surprise him this time, that the guilt loses some of its power.

“Long story short, I got your medication back safe and sound,” Tim says, his voice soft and more serious now, “It’s in one of the boxes if you wanted to take it now.”

Martin takes a deep breath. “I don’t… I’m not sure. I get sort of nervous when I—if I take a break for whatever reason and then I start taking it again.”

“Well, since it’s nearly eight, the alarm reminding me to take _my_ medication is about to go off. And then in fifteen minutes, the second alarm will go off making sure I didn’t turn the first one off and forget to actually take my meds. And then the third one will go off, and then the—you get the picture.” Tim smiles. “What I’m trying to say is, we could beat the buzzer so to speak and take it together now?”

“I’d join in, but I take mine with breakfast,” Sasha adds apologetically.

“What do you say, Martin?” Tim continues. “No pressure, of course. We can leave you to it and you can take it when you’re ready.”

“No. Now sounds… now sounds good, actually. The sooner, the better, I guess.” Martin feels his smile waver, but at least it’s there. “Thank you.”

Tim levers himself out of the beanbag with a groan. “I’ll just get us some water. Sasha, wanna give Martin the grand tour?”

While Tim goes to the staff room, Sasha wriggles off the air mattress and begins talking Martin through the storage they’ve set up around the room. Halfway between explaining where she’s put his new clothes and what to do if he wants her to return them, she casually removes the orange box containing his medication and puts it down on the blanket next to him. He picks it up and holds it in both hands, rubbing his thumb over the braille on the box, the smooth carboard contrasting with the slight roughness of the pharmacy’s printout sticker with his date of birth and address on it.

He tries not to let his mind wander down any path that might lead to panic, nodding in response to Sasha’s explanation about the clothes even as he wants to hide, to tell her now to take them all back. He lets himself get comfortable again with the weight and size of the medication in his hands, trying not to think about the weeks and weeks he delayed starting the first time he was prescribed sertraline.

“I’m back,” Tim announces, stepping back into the room with two full glasses of water. He hands one to Martin before taking his own medication from his back pocket and then lowering himself carefully into the beanbag again without spilling any of his drink. “Do you need a moment?”

“Maybe. Yes. If that’s okay,” Martin mumbles.

Tim smiles kindly. “Of course. Sash, did you tell Martin the story of how long it took us to find the matching photos? They were so hidden. I’m telling you, that shop was a maze.”

As they tell the story, Jon’s absence presses closer against Martin’s consciousness. He worries that Jon will return before he has taken the medication and somehow, that feels worse than just getting it over with now. Tim’s phone alarm blares, hailing the arrival of eight p.m., and he looks at Martin, who manages a nod in response. 

Sasha continues the story while Martin slides the blister packet of tablets from the box and then pops one into his palm. Tim lifts his glass as if in a toast before swallowing his own medication, and Martin takes a deep, shuddering breath before he manages to place his own in his mouth. It feels like it lodges in his throat for a moment, so he drinks the whole glass of water, but the discomfort fades quickly, replaced by a buzzing, low-level anxiety that comes with waiting. Waiting for the one in a million side effects he had read about online, for his mother’s voice to reprimand him for needing medication.

“Pizza!” Tim shrieks.

Jon is standing in the entrance to the storage room, four large boxes and two smaller ones balanced in his hands. They’d ordered a lot of pizza, Martin remembered, ostensibly so they could have one each, but Jon mentioned something about it being nice for Martin to have leftovers in the staff room fridge.

“Are those spicy chicken wings?” Tim says, moving towards Jon and eyeing the smaller boxes of sides on top of the pizzas. “Jon, you know me so well.”

“You better share those,” Sasha says, “They’re Martin’s favourite, too.”

“Are they?” Tim sounds delightfully surprised. “I never knew that! Martin, we have so much in common.”

Jon places the boxes in the centre of the room, atop the fluffy grey rug—another new addition. There’s a blur of intense busyness that takes Martin’s mind away from the medication as they ferry plates and cutlery and mugs from the break room. It’s controlled chaos as they all fill their plates, and Tim very nearly ruins the new rug in the process of opening the bottle of Coke that came with their order.

But eventually, they settle into a sort of peace. Jon perches on the beanbag next to the air mattress, while Tim and Sasha sit on either side of Martin atop the blankets. The pizza is good. Martin’s exhaustion begins to set in again during the meal and he finds himself eating quietly while the conversation continues around him, mainly dominated by Sasha and Tim. The atmosphere of intense gratitude, the kind that is almost too much to process and place, has dissipated in favour of something gentler and more comfortable.

“Thank you,” Martin says, worried he’ll fall asleep before he gets the chance to express his gratitude. They’ve all finished eating, and he isn’t the only one who looks tired now. “For all of this. I’m really—I didn’t expect—but I’m really, _really_ grateful.”

“We’re just glad we could help in some way,” Sasha replies.

“Yeah,” Tim adds, “You’re a good friend, Martin. You deserve to be cared for.”

“It would be remiss of my, as your boss, not to remedy a situation directly related to your work,” Jon interjects. His voice is harsh, but there is something almost gentle in his eyes when he finally allows them to meet Martin’s. “As your… well, I am sorry that this happened to you, Martin. I will endeavour to make sure this doesn’t happen again, to any of you.”

Martin lowers his eyes to his empty plate, still sitting in his lap, to hide his smile. “Thanks, Jon.”

“Does this mean I can have an axe?” Tim asks.

“What? No,” Jon snaps, “Why would you want or need an axe?”

“Just a small one.”

“It doesn’t matter what size it is; you are not using company funds to purchase an—”

Martin lets the conversation spool away from him. He’s too tired to follow it, but he is here and that is enough. He is surrounded by friends. He doesn’t know how long this peace will last. He doesn’t know what’s coming next. And yet part of him is hopeful—not ready, not close, but he is far further from despair than he had been only hours before.

Martin might not know what he’s doing at the Magnus Institute. Might not know what place he has here, what future. But he does know why he’s trying to stay. He has a reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then they all survive through the power of love and live happily ever after!!! i am genuinely not kidding when i say i think this is somehow part of an 'everything is a little bit more okay' AU 🥺(although feel free to disregard this, i am simply indulging myself and in denial about the upcoming finale). 
> 
> thank you so much, everyone, for reading - for all of your comments and kudos and patience and kindness. it truly means the world to me and i am so grateful to all of you, especially for sticking with me when it came to this fic and its ever-evolving length. this really is the last chapter, but hopefully not the last tma fic i write!!!
> 
> thank you again!!! have a wonderful day 💛

**Author's Note:**

> 24-hour supermarkets belong to at least five (5) tma domains. in this essay, i will... 
> 
> this got a bit long, so i decided to split it into two parts, but the next bit is nearly done and i promise to post it as soon as it is!!! tune in next time for series 1 Jon awkwardly trying to take care of Martin!!!!! 
> 
> thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3


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